Spotlight: Liz Flaherty

A New Season by Liz Flaherty

Although I like series and have enjoyed writing the ones I have, they’re not my chosen…I don’t even know what the word is for it…subgenre? I don’t know if anyone else still likes reading one-and-done books, but I do. I like writing them, too. It’s not the first time I’ve been out of step with publishing. As a matter of fact, since my first book was published in 1999, I’ve pretty much mastered the art.

Yes, indeed, being out of step with trends and whatever else is the oh, yes! of the moment is an art. I’m nowhere near the only one who’s good at it, but every time I walk off the dance floor with the intent of getting better at the step of the day, I…well…I don’t.

Feeling the say I do, it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise when a series I wrote released to…very few sales, very little attention, and huge disappointment on my part. However, maybe I was looking at it wrong. Instead of thinking of what has now been changed to A New Season as a series, I need to just think—and talk about—them as Syd’s, Riley’s, and Dinah’s stories. Because that’s what they are. That they all take place in the same small town on the same lake is incidental. They can be read in order, but they don’t have to. The third book isn’t even out yet.

While it would thrill me if you bought and read all of these, I hope you just start with one. Thanks to Vicky for having me here today and thank you for stopping by!

Book 1 A Year of Firsts: “I’m Sydney Cavanaugh. Just passing through.”
Widow Syd Cavanaugh is beginning a “year of firsts” with the road trip she’d promised her husband she’d take after his death. An unplanned detour lands her in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, where she meets the interesting and intelligent editor of the local paper.

Television journalist Clay McAlister’s life took an unexpected turn when a heart attack forced him to give up his hectic lifestyle. He’s still learning how to live in a small town when meeting a pretty traveler in the local coffee shop suddenly makes it all much more interesting.

While neither of them is interested in a romantic relationship, their serious case of being “in like” seems to push them that way. However, Clay’s heart condition doesn’t harbinger a very secure future, and Syd’s already lost one man she loved to a devastating illness—she isn’t about to lose another. Where can this relationship possibly go?

https://books2read.com/u/b5w1NR

Book 2: Reinventing Riley: He’s afraid a second time at love wouldn’t live up to his first. She’s afraid a second round would be exactly like her first.

Pastor Jake McAlister and businesswoman Riley Winters are in their forties and widowed. Neither is interested in a relationship. They both love Fallen Soldier, the small Pennsylvania town where they met, even though Rye plans to move to Chicago, and Jake sees a change in pastorates not too far down the road. Enjoying a few-weeks friendship is something they both look forward to.

However, there is an indisputable attraction between the green-eyed pastor and the woman with a shining sweep of chestnut hair. Then there’s the Culp, an old downtown building that calls unrelentingly to Rye’s entrepreneurial soul. And when a young man named Griff visits Jake, life changes in the blink of a dark green eye.

https://books2read.com/u/4jBnV5

Book 3 The Summer of Sorrow and Dance: In the midst of a summer of change, they’re both searching for an anchor.
Dinah is a mom, a giver, and a doer, so she’s used to change, but this summer is kind of overdoing that. The diner where she’s worked for half her life is closing, her college-age kids aren’t coming home for the summer, and a property on nearby Cooper Lake is calling her name, bringing long-held dreams of owning a B & B to the fore. Newcomer Zach Applegate is entering into her dreams, too.

Divorced dad, contractor, and recovering alcoholic Zach is in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, to visit his brother and to decide what’s coming next in his life. He doesn’t like change much, yet it seems to be everywhere. But he finds an affinity for remodeling and restoration, is overjoyed when his teenage sons join him for the summer, and he likes Dinah Tyler, too. A lot.

Dinah and Zach each experience sorrow and tumult, but go on to dance in the kitchen. Together, they have something, but is it enough?

Coming soon!

Bio:

Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time sewing, quilting, and wanting to travel. The author of 20-some books and her husband Duane share an old farmhouse in North Central Indiana.

Liz thinks one of the things that keeps you young when you quite obviously aren’t anymore is the constant chances you have to reinvent yourself. Her latest professional incarnation is as a fledgling women’s fiction author and she is enjoying every minute that she’s not scared to death.  

She can be reached at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please find her at any of the places listed in Linktree at https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty