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best-selling author, beer blogger and beer marketing expert, mom of three, and
soccer fan, Liz Crowe lives Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales
and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat
trailing spouse.
Her
early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction
subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and
followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens
After?”). More recently she is garnering even more fans across genres with her
latest novels, which are more character-driven fiction, while remaining very
much “real life.”
With
stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in
successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul,
Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe
backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and
complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the
imagination long after the book is finished.
Blurb for Love Garage (Book 1)
Antony Love is the quintessential
responsible oldest brother of a boisterous, Italian/Irish family, placed in
charge at a young age by his parents who are busy running the family business.
He manages his siblings with a fair but iron hand, until his life is shattered
by personal tragedy leaving him the shell of the man he once was.
When outspoken matriarch Lindsay
Halloran Love falls ill, the youngest brother Aiden shows up at Antony's
garage, having dropped out of school (again), needing work and a place to
crash. Antony provides both, with three caveats: "Don't smoke in my truck,
don't be late for work, and don't mess with my girlfriend."
But Aiden Love, budding novelist, gets
one glimpse of Rosalee Norris, young widow of Antony's lifelong best friend and
all bets are off.
Set in horse country near Lexington, Kentucky, The Love Brothers Series is
a saga of family devotion that runs as wide and deep as the Ohio River--except
on Sundays when brothers Antony, Kieran, Dominic and Aiden work out their
frustrations on the basketball court, Love brother style.
Excerpt from Love Garage
Love Garage opened bright and
early the next morning, a Saturday, a day Aiden had hoped to spend recovering.
“I get so many oil changes and
random small jobs on Saturdays, it doesn’t make sense to be closed and let the
jackasses with the Quickilube at Walmart get the business,” Antony insisted
when Aiden groaned with dismay upon being awakened after two hours of drunken
sleep. It didn’t help that the awakening occurred at the business end of a
thrown pillow. “Get up, Romeo. You owe me rent money.”
He did, slowly, queasily hitting
a shower, sore all over, his skin mottled from bug bites. But nothing topped
the glorious agony of a bourbon hangover like the one that had him firmly in
its evil grasp.
He slouched out the door, cursing
Antony, cursing Tricia, cursing her ex-husband for throwing her in his path
last night. But mostly cursing his own weak-ass uselessness. He rested his head
against the cool comfort of the truck window until Antony hit a bump or two,
which sent extra pain jolting down his spine.
“Sorry,” his brother muttered,
glancing over at him.
“No, you’re not.”
“Got me there. And you’d better
warn me if you’re about to toss your cookies. I won’t have that in my vehicle,
got me?”
Aiden rubbed his neck and nodded,
swallowing the urge to throw up all over the pristine interior on principal.
“Why d’you hate me so much? You used to like me.” He stared over at his
brother, heart thumping, ears humming, throat closing up with nausea. He
despised waking up still drunk.
“I don’t hate you.” Antony turned
onto the main road headed into town.
“Could’ve fooled me. You’re a
real asshole anymore. Worse than Dom.”
Antony merely shrugged, not
rising to that tried-and-true bait. So they spent the rest of the ride to the
garage in silence. Once there, Antony sat gripping the wheel. Aiden waited,
hoping he’d get something out of him—something he would assure him that the man
he thought he remembered as the protective, funny, and loving guy he’d grown up
with still existed inside the guy walking around wearing Antony’s skin.
Finally, he let go of the wheel,
exhaled, and squared his shoulders as if prepping for battle. Aiden made a
mental note to talk to Kieran about how badly Antony had descended into his
life of non-stop mourning and jerk-hood.
“So, Rosalee, not putting out for
you or what? You need to get laid maybe? Knock the edge off?”
The glare Aiden got for saying
those particular words did make him worry Antony might punch his aching head
through the passenger-side window.
He clenched his jaw in the way
Aiden remembered from their childhood. “That is so far outside the realm of
your business as to be in another galaxy. Get to work and don’t say her name to
me again.”
And with that, Aiden was left
with the fleeting thought that mentioning Rosalee directly was probably not a
good idea. He surely didn’t need Antony to guess that her name was on his lips,
or front and center of his mind.
He shook his head—a Bad Plan
because it summoned the pounding agony back with a vengeance. Groaning, he
climbed out and shuffled over to the door.
A new day began at Love Garage.
The
smoldering intensity of first love ~ the forbidden fantasy of temptation ~ the
cold hard facts of real life.
When
one man’s hopes are dashed apart in a split second after years spent chasing a
dream, he returns home to Kentucky furious at the world and everyone around
him.
Kieran Francesco is the middle son of the
volatile, tight-knit Halloran-Love family. His role as peacemaker and the one
true athlete is well established. He now faces life devoid of the sport he
adores after a horrific, career-ending accident, which places him in a new and
entirely uncomfortable position—that of the brother with no future.
Over
the course of a few tumultuous months Kieran is plunged back into life at the
center of the Love family, where he must cope with one self-destructive
brother, one ill-timed reconnection to an old flame and a series of bad choices
that land him in more trouble than he’d ever known existed.
COACH
LOVE, book 2 of The Love Brothers, a family saga of sibling loyalty that runs
as deep and wide as the Ohio River—at least until Sunday, when Antony, Kieran,
Dominic and Aiden work out their frustrations at the weekly Love brother
pick-up basketball game.
Excerpt from Coach Love
As he drove the twenty or so
miles from his parents’ house into town Kieran’s head began to clear. The
windows were down and the tunes cranked. The sun shone. Signs of summer--one of
his favorite seasons--were all around him. Parks packed with families, all the
basketball courts and swimming pools overflowing. The sight of a gaggle of boys
on bikes riding alongside him for a while, singing along with whatever random,
crappy rap song currently polluted the airwaves made him smile.
“Hey, it’s Kieran Love!” one of
the punks shouted after a few blocks. “Can you come over and shoot a few with
us?”
He waved and drove on, gratified
but sad, the sound of their cheerful unhappiness at his refusal filling his
ears, taking the stretch of four lane road at seventy miles an hour, pressing
the gas pedal to the floor, the throaty, powerful roar of the car’s engine
revving him from head to toe.
It would be all right because he
and Melinda loved each other. They had from the moment they’d met. He passed
some grandpa in a Toyota, as the deep green fields surrounded by picturesque
white fences and dotted with horses filled both sides of his vision.
He’d been home and recuperating
from radical knee surgery with the best prognosis he could hope for after such
a nasty break--to walk normally, much less play the occasional pick up game.
His depression had been deep, wide, and terrifying. He woke every day at his
parents’ house, unwilling even to get out of bed, not that he could without
help for the first few weeks.
Antony had tossed a laptop
computer at him one day when he’d been sulking, unshaven, and eating an entire
bag of potato chips, something he’d not done since the age of ten when his
fate--bound for basketball fame and fortune--had been determined.
“Here, find a job, find a date,
find something,” he’d said before yanking the empty chip bag away and smacking
Kieran’s head hard enough to make his ears ring.
“Ow. Leave me alone, asshole. I’m
grievously injured,” he’d said, not caring about the swear-free zone he
inhabited.
“That’s three dollars young man,”
his mother had called out from the kitchen.
“You live with this, jerk, and
see how you feel about finding ‘a date.’“ He’d hooked his fingers around the
words, heart in his throat at how badly he’d wanted to call Cara right then.
But by the next weekend he was
caning and limping his way toward the door to some faux-fancy Italian
restaurant in Lexington, rubbing his freshly shaved face and trying not to
sweat through his dress shirt. The woman from the internet site sat at the bar,
twirling an olive-laden swizzle stick in her martini glass, long, slim, bare
legs crossed, feet encased in sky-high patent leather heels. He’d exhaled,
beyond relived that he’d not been cat-fished by some troll, or worse, a dude.
He’d hesitated then, something in
him telling him to turn around and leave, fast. But at that moment, she’d
flashed him the whitest, most perfect smile he’d ever seen and he’d been
hooked. He still didn’t know how. They’d gone out for three weeks before she
let him kiss her. It’d been another three weeks before he got anywhere near her
tits. It had been a solid four months before he scored but that encounter had
been, in a word, epic.
Melinda liked to talk dirty, wear
heels and a garter belt while he fucked her. Loved doing it with all the lights
on and in semi-public places. She gave head like a pro at first, before he’d
given her an engagement ring.
Her bitchiness had come across as
extreme decisiveness, sort of hot in way, he’d admit, since he tended toward
the spontaneous and unplanned--”wishy washy” as he now understood it thanks to
Melinda’s re-categorization of his personality. Her tight grip on her emotions
and her surroundings, the OCD way she ordered her life did grate on him at
times but he figured she tolerated his innate sloppiness and willingness to
wake on a Sunday without a plan in place for the rest of the day. When he
realized he sat across from her at some overpriced, hipster restaurant near her
office after going out with her for eight months, ready to present her with a
ring he could barely afford, it had shocked him without seeming to even faze
her.
“Well, of course I’ll marry you,
but you’ve got to find a better job,” she’d drawled as she sipped her
champagne.
“A new job?” He’d gotten the
teaching gig at his old high school and couldn’t imagine any job he’d want or
like better. She made six figures for Christ’s sake, at least he thought she
did.
Elated, drunk with lust and
achievement, he’d tried to get his long legs adjusted under the small table
jammed between all the others and covered with small plates of “tapas” which,
best he could tell were “appetizers” only twice the price and half the
helpings.
“I’ll do anything you want,
Melinda. You saved me, honest to God you did.”
She’d fluttered her inky black
lashes and gazed at him with an expression that convinced him he’d made the
drastic move for the right reasons. The following year had been a combination
of frustration, anger and high school level blue balls. The double drama Antony
and Aiden had foisted on the Love family during that time hadn’t helped but it
had distracted him. He’d taught his classes, helped out with the basketball
team pro bono without telling Melinda and had been happier than he’d ever been
as a pro athlete.
The fact that she maintained her
uber-bitch persona around his family killed him. But he was hooked.
Still.
Mostly.
Every
family has one—the black sheep, the problem child, the prodigal. But Dominic
Sean Love could teach all of those guys a lesson or two. Stuck in the middle of
a boisterous group of siblings, he’s given “acting out” a new meaning from the day
he drew his first breath.
While
he’s the one son who follows his strict father’s footsteps into the Love family
business, he’s also the one who butts heads with him the hardest. Their epic
clashes are the stuff of family legend. But they have made peace and work side
by side to take Love Brewing to the next level of success.
Until
Dominic does the one thing his father can never forgive.
Diana
Brantley has been Dominic’s friend, girlfriend and ex-girlfriend so many times
she’s lost count. When he shows up at the farm she’s slowly transforming into a
wildly popular farm-to-table resource for restaurants all over the U.S. her
first impulse is to shoot first and ask questions later. But she doesn’t. And their
lives entwine once more, for good, bad and ugly.
Excerpt from Love Brewing
Dominic would give anything be able to
talk to Kieran. They’d gotten close in the last months since he’d required a
rather alarming rescue from a jail down in Georgia and his brother had shown
up, very few questions asked. But no,
Kieran had his own issues and likely at that very moment was busy trying to
convince his high school girlfriend to marry him, even as she stood dressed and
ready to marry someone else.
He had to squeeze his eyes tight shut to
banish images of Kent for the zillionth time.
“You need dry clothes,” Diana said,
interrupting his pity party.
He shrugged and kept his gaze fixed on
the view of rain. “Your garden looks like shit. When’s the last time you bothered
to pull weeds?”
She snorted. He smiled. He used to love
it when she’d do that. He’d honestly had no intention of showing up here today.
The Brantley farm remained way off the beaten track, if the track around
Lucasville could be considered “beaten” in any way. When he’d raced out of the
stifling hot sanctuary and hotwired Kieran’s car he’d driven off without a
single thought in his addled head other than “escape.”
But when he’d finally released his death
grip on the steering wheel he’d looked through the windshield and found himself
facing the old two-story farmhouse where he’d lost his virginity—not to Diana
but to her sister Jen, an older version of the girl he’d been hanging around
with since God was a boy. The whooshing sound that had deafened him for the
last couple of days had receded ever so slightly at the sight of the place.
He’d not been anywhere near it in over
six years, ever since he’d run out here to find Diana when Gina had bolted for
New York. Her reaction to his surprise visit had been decidedly less hostile
then. He groaned and ran a hand down his wet face.
No one to blame
but yourself for this reception, numb nuts.
As if on cue, the dog whined and bumped his
leg with its huge muzzle.
“Bossy bitch,” he said softly, giving
her another scratch behind the ears. The animal gazed at him adoringly. Yeah,
dogs always did love him. He glanced up and caught sight of Diana tugging on a
shirt that looked way too big for her. The sight of it sent a thrill of
something he didn’t want to acknowledge as jealousy down his spine.
You have less than no place being
jealous of anything about her, he reminded himself. She stared at him as she
buttoned up the light blue, obviously man-sized shirt. He had to restrain
himself from blinking too fast at the onrushing memories that threatened to mow
him down.
“Put on a few pounds eh Di?” he said,
leaning back against the rough barn wall. The dog practically crawled up onto
the hay bale and laid its head in his lap. Damn thing weighed over eighty
pounds and smelled like rancid pond water, but he didn’t stop it.
“Fuck you,” she said, turning away and
giving him a lovely view of the backs of her slim, tanned legs. “Come up to the
house and get some dry clothes on, you dumbass.” She stood there, wearing that
shirt that made his chest hurt, pondering where it had come from, her legs bare
and beautiful. It made him want to weep. He set his jaw and turned away from
her.
“I missed you and your ladylike ways,”
he said, almost absently, as he turned back to study the rain that pounded the
window. “Ow!” The towel pop flicked his neck, then his thigh. “Damn girl, you
on your period or what?” He rubbed his leg and noted that he was, indeed,
soaked through and could use a change of clothes. Too bad he hadn’t thought of that
when he ran away from what remained of his former life.
“I can feel your crybaby BS from clear
across this barn,” she said.
He turned fast, angry at her words. But
her gaze comforted him. And suddenly, he realized why he’d found himself here,
on what could be labeled as the worst day of his sorry-ass thirty years.
“How’d marriage work out for ya,” he
said, shoving the dog off his lap and getting to his feet.
“How d’you think? I mean, I’m sure it
was the talk of the town.” She kept staring at him, not moving. For a split
second, Dom found himself headed toward her, needing to feel her skin, taste
her lips. But he stood, keeping the four or so feet between them, the dogs
milling around their ankles making worried noises. An errant drop of water fell
from a lock of hair over his eyes. The moment felt fraught and he cursed
himself for causing her pain, again. And again.
“Well, I guess the guy was lucky to
escape with his balls intact,” he said, finally. “You’re still as ugly as
homemade sin,” he lied.
The corner of her lips lifted. He let
himself exhale.
It was on now. And he knew she’d let him
stay as long as he needed.
LOVE
BROTHERS TRAILER HERE:
Participating Blogs
1 Harlie Williams, Writer
2 Independent Authors
3 Nana Prah
4 Romance Novel Giveaways
5 Bunny's Review
6 Crazy Four Books
7 My Odd Little World
8 Books & Other Spells
9 A Book Addict's Delight
10 Aly's Miscellany
11 Queen of the Night Reviews
12 Sexy Adventures, Passionate Tales
13 Coffee Books & Art
14 A Writer's Life
15 Underneath the Covers
16 Hope. Dreams. Life... Love
17 deal sharing aunt
18 Bea's Book Nook
2 Independent Authors
3 Nana Prah
4 Romance Novel Giveaways
5 Bunny's Review
6 Crazy Four Books
7 My Odd Little World
8 Books & Other Spells
9 A Book Addict's Delight
10 Aly's Miscellany
11 Queen of the Night Reviews
12 Sexy Adventures, Passionate Tales
13 Coffee Books & Art
14 A Writer's Life
15 Underneath the Covers
16 Hope. Dreams. Life... Love
17 deal sharing aunt
18 Bea's Book Nook
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