My Place - One More Summer by Liz Flaherty

Happy New Year to all my friends here! I hope you've all celebrated in style. :-)

No rest for the wicked, so we're straight back to My Place to welcome the lovely Liz Flaherty whose latest novel, One More Summer, is due out on 2nd January 2012. Perfect timing!

Let's hear about Liz...

Life is new and wonderful for writer Liz Flaherty these days. She retired from the post office in 2011, promptly gained 15 pounds—she swears it was overnight—and promised her grandchildren, The Magnificent Seven, that she would make each of them a bed-size quilt. She also planned to write all day, every day.

What was she thinking?

She’s learned to write when she feels like it, sew when she feels like it, and maybe even to eat a little less. She’s gone back to school, where, yes, she is far and away the oldest kid in class. She’s learned to share the house and sometimes even the kitchen with Duane, her husband of, oh, lots of years.

And she’s having a Very, Very Good Time.

Her fifth book—she’s not really an overnight success; she just never gives up—ONE MORE SUMMER, will be released tomorrow by Carina Press. She is thrilled to the point everyone she knows rolls their eyes as soon as she opens her mouth. 

Cathie, thanks so much for having me here today. Just as my bio says, life is exciting! Starting the new year with a new book is just amazing to me. I’m not going to say much here today, but I hope visitors enjoy the blurb and the excerpt and I really hope they buy the book and enjoy that, too. 

Safe and Happy New Year to everyone!

My Place:

ONE MORE SUMMER takes place in the eastern corner of Tennessee in the sleepy little town of Peacock. The name comes from the varying and vibrant colors of the trees, one of those things no one ever thought would stick but did. It’s typical small town, with one stoplight, and one of most everything else. Maeve Malone’s Saloon, Carol’s Clip Joint, the Cup and Cozy, and the New Methodist Church all reside on Main Street. Lawyers Row is the neighborhood of Big Old Houses where the Old Families live—or used to. It has park benches, a walking boulevard down its center, and no curbs.

I always write small-town stories anyway, and Tennessee is so very beautiful I decided to build a town there after a visit to my sister-in-law who lives tucked up in the corner next to North Carolina. Peacock is the happy result.

Blurb:

Grace has taken care of her widowed father her entire adult life and the ornery old goat has finally died. She has no job, no skills and very little money, and has heard her father’s prediction that no decent man would ever want her so often she accepts it as fact.

But she does have a big old house on Lawyers Row in Peacock, Tennessee. She opens a rooming house and quickly gathers a motley crew of tenants: Promise, Grace’s best friend since kindergarten, who’s fighting cancer; Maxie, an aging soap opera actress who hasn’t lost her flair for the dramatic; Jonah, a sweet, gullible old man with a crush on Maxie.

And Dillon, Grace’s brother’s best friend, who stood her up on the night of her senior prom and has regretted it ever since. Dillon rents Grace’s guest house for the summer and hopes to make up for lost time and past hurts—but first, he’ll have to convince Grace that she’s worth loving…

Excerpt:

  Grace walked past him toward the clothesline. She was clad in the overalls and tank top that seemed to be her uniform for hot days. Dillon stood, still holding the door open, and stared after her. For a woman with no hips, she certainly did have a way about her walk. He didn’t know whether it was her long stride or the way she held her shoulders or the tilt of her head, but it was certainly…something. Then he lifted his eyes. Good God, what had she done with her hair? 

  “You’re letting flies in, Dillon,” she called over the bedspread she was hanging up. “I hope this sucker  dries,” she muttered. “Mrs. Willard and her night air.” 

  Dillon closed the door and went over to where she stood. He helped her pin the heavy bedspread to the 

line, then put his hands on her shoulders, turning her as he had Promise only moments before so that he could see the tousled cap of bronze-tipped curls from all angles. Unable to stop himself, he raised a hand and ran it through her hair, finding it as silky as it appeared. 

  “Beautiful,” he murmured. 

  She started, then shook her head, but he stopped the movement with a hand on her face. Lord, he loved 

how her skin felt. “Oh, yes,” he said softly. “Not only the hair, though it is, but the reason you got it cut. Are there no limits to friendship, Grace? Will you shave your head when Prom loses her hair?” 

  “You know.” 

  He nodded. “Will you?” He stroked her cheek with his thumb, feeling the slick spot that was the scar her father had left there. He wanted to touch his lips to the mark. 

  Well, there was another thought he didn’t want to examine too closely. 

  “No.” She pulled away, bending to retrieve the bedspread. “Unless she needs me to.” 

  The last words were mumbled, but Dillon heard them anyway. He sauntered away, smiling.

Author Link:

She’d love to have you visit her website http://lizflaherty.com/index.html or http://wordwranglers.blogspot.com/ where she hangs out with some of her best writer friends.

Buy Links:

http://ebooks.carinapress.com/19C28077-E8B2-400A-ACBF-FAE0579EE2F0/10/134/en/Default.htm

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-more-summer-liz-flaherty/1107412429

http://www.amazon.com/One-More-Summer-ebook/dp/B006BE6HAG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324908781&sr=8-1