women’s fiction

New Release: Pieces of Blue by Liz Flaherty

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

At the beginning of this month, USA Today’s best selling author Liz Flaherty released Pieces of Blue. Normally a romance author, Liz has dipped her toes into women’s fiction with her latest release, and is here to share her thoughts on her recent writing and publishing journey.

Hi, everybody. Chelsey, thank you so much for having me here today. 

I’m not sure when the term women’s fiction entered my consciousness. I don’t recall whose I read first or even if I liked it. The words Woman’s Journey had been bandied about most of the years I’d been writing romance, and I thought that’s what we should do with romance and women’s fiction—just make them into one huge glorious genre known as The Woman’s Journey. 

The idea didn’t catch on. 

But I read CurtissAnn Matlock’s Lost Highways and Robyn Carr’s Deep in the Valley and Cheryl Reavis’s Blackberry Winter and Elisabeth Ogilvie’s Bennett’s Island series. I kept thinking yes, this! They’re all women’s fiction, but they’re all love stories, too. They’re all women’s journeys and I’ve read most of them more than once. While I love the relationship that grows between the heroine and hero, I also enjoy the ones between girlfriends, between sisters, between work friends who are there for each other. The romance is important, but it’s not always most important. 

Because it’s the story that’s important. The journey. How you feel when you finish reading. To a lesser degree, as a writer, how I feel when I finish writing is important, too. 

Of course, none of that was in my mind at all when I got a two-word start that wouldn’t get off my mind and stay there. Then I had a trip back a skinny, curvy road to a small lake I’d never known existed but made me type Chapter One above those initial two words. Later still, Maggie North invited me on her journey. It took her a while, and writing it took me a while, but…gosh, I loved Maggie. And Sam. And her adoptive parents. And Pastor Cari Newland. Oh, and Ellie and the dachshund named Chloe, too. 

Pieces of Blue has some romance, a setting I never wanted to leave, and, most of all, it has friends and family and community. Their dialogue was so much fun to write. The house—the Burl—is a character unto itself. 

How did I feel when I finished writing it? Oh, good. Sorry it was over and slapping back thoughts that maybe it wasn’t over…maybe there was another story at Harper Loch. Or two.

We’ll see. In the meantime, it’s a story from the “huge glorious genre” I mentioned above. I hope you like it.

For all of her adult life, loner Maggie North has worked for bestselling author Trilby Winterroad, first as his typist, then as his assistant, and finally as his ghost writer. Throughout her first marriage, widowhood, remarriage, and divorce from an abusive husband, Trilby was the constant in her life.

When he dies, she inherits not only his dachshund, Chloe, but a house she didn’t know existed on a lake she’d never heard of. On her first visit, she falls in love with both the house and the lake. Within a few weeks, she’s met most of the 85 inhabitants of Harper Loch and surprisingly, become a part of the tiny community. Her life expands as does a new kind of relationship with her friend Sam Eldridge. She finally feels not only at home, but safe.

Until her ex-husband is released from prison. The fragile threads of her new life begin to fray, and that feeling of safety is about to shatter into a thousand pieces.

The drive took me farther into the country than I’d ever been—at least that I could remember. While the temperature didn’t drop, the wind did increase, blowing snow from the roadsides across in front of me in gusty swirls of white. I was surprised that Gladys, the elegant voice of my GPS, didn’t sound either confused or disdainful even when it took me three tries to see the little green sign that indicated Harper Loch Road.

Canopied by naked February trees and lined with animal-tracked snowbanks, the road was one and a half lanes wide. I hoped it would be wider when there was no snow, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It was hilly, with serpentine curves that reminded me of a Chutes and Ladders game board minus the ladders. Gladys didn’t enlighten me as to how far it was to the lake itself, and two miles in, I was starting to wonder if it was all a bad joke. 

Trilby had been the master of bad jokes.

A barnwood sign at the side of the road encouraged me to Keep Right! I inched over, flinching when the snowbank brushed the side of my car, my pride and joy. Chloe looked my way, wide eyed.

Apparently, it was a popular meeting spot on the road, because I met a pickup immediately, going at least twice as fast as I was. The driver waved cheerfully and missed me by what I was certain was the hair’s breadth Trilby used to insist was purple prose if used in a book. I would have waved back, but my hands, white knuckled, didn’t want to let go of the steering wheel.

“Trilby,” I said, “what in the hell were you thinking?”

Pieces of Blue is available everywhere books are sold online:

https://books2read.com/FlahertyBlue

https://a.co/d/eyEjPDA

Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that.

She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please come and see her at  https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty 

New Release: Cruel Charade by Alana Lorens

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Alana Lorens’ latest Mystery-Thriller released last week: Cruel Charade.

First allow me to introduce Alana, a seasoned author by many names:

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Alana Lorens (aka Barbara Mountjoy) has been a published writer for over 45 years, including seven years as a reporter/editor at the South Dade News Leader in Homestead, Florida, after working as a server, a pizza maker, and a floral designer. She writes non-fiction, romance, adventure, and suspense novels. She is the author of the Pittsburgh Lady Lawyers series, which draws on her years as a family law attorney in the state of Pennsylvania. One of the causes close to her heart came from those years as well–the fight against domestic violence. She volunteered for many years at women’s shelters and provided free legal services to women and children in need. Alana resides in North Carolina, and she loves her time in the smoky blue mountains. She lives with her daughter, who is the youngest of her seven children, and she is ruled by three crotchety old cats, and six kittens of various ages.

Now, on to Cruel Charade. Alana, introduce us to the story, world and characters.

Miami in the 1990s was shiny and glitzy, loud and tropical, and often dark and deadly. Star Island has as many criminal masterminds as old moneyed-families, and the average person on the street could get killed for the price of a hit of crack cocaine.

In this world, we find Bet Lenard, who until recently was a family law attorney, married to Richard Lenard, a powerful local attorney practicing criminal defense law. This couple had a home in the Redlands, enjoying the best of Dade County living with their two teenagers, Jane and Jeremy. 

But Bet has a mysterious illness that leaves her constantly in pain, which her doctors can’t identify and even attribute to her mind. Since she cannot work and cope with the pain, she turns to alcohol, which drives a wedge between her and the family. Richard files for divorce, blaming her for the break-up.

When she finds herself in the Everglades one night, she realizes her life is out of control. Reluctant to accept help, because she doesn’t know who to trust, she must peel back the layers of the onion of her life to discover who wants her dead. A sympathetic police detective may be a friend. Her long-time therapist?  Is it a knowledgeable doctor who has a lead on her sickness? Could her estranged husband and children be of support? Perhaps there is no one, and she is doomed to fail.

What inspired your story?

In this book, my daughter Bethany suggested it would be interesting to begin a scene with the Five Things—many people have become familiar with the technique as they have gotten into counseling, etc. So I wrote the first chapter, and her comment was, “Well, that got dark fast.” Haha. But she was right—it was a great place to begin.

And of course I practiced law and lived in deep south Florida for a decade (Homestead, pre-Hurricane Andrew) so I have a background in the area.

Give us a brief look at your writing process. Are you a plotter or pantser? How much time did you spend on this project? What is your writing schedule like?

I’m about half and half. Usually I begin with an idea, or a character and get about halfway through, then begin to draw out final arcs. Most of my books take about six months. This one I worked over two years before getting a contract. I polished and polished so it would be right. I’m a night writer as well, so I confess there are some nights I wrote until the wee hours and some nights I just crashed. 😊

Who are you outside of writing?

A crafter, a mom to a grown daughter on the spectrum, a warrior against autoimmune disease, and a gardener—this year we are growing 14 kinds of vegetables, from potatoes to shishitos to tomatoes, along with thyme, lemongrass and catnip to support our clowder of nine.

Follow Alana and check out Cruel Charade at https://alana-lorens.com/

Miami attorney Bet Lenard has had a rough year. She’s battling an unknown illness that drives her to drink to cope with her pain. Her lawyer husband has divorced her and taken the best part of their business, their home and their children. 

On the night of May 16, 1996, Bet finds herself in the Everglades in the middle of the night, drugged, lost and next to a burned car with a dead body in it. Hoping she’s hit bottom, Bet must drag herself out of her living hell and discover who tried to kill her. Was it her ex-husband, not satisfied with stealing everything that mattered? An angry client, unhappy with the outcome of their case? Her best friend’s husband, livid that Bet’s restraining order kicked him out of her life forever? Police officers fuming that Bet helped a client convict a dirty cop who was their friend? She has no idea. 

As she tries to sort out the motives behind her would-be killer, even more suspects come to light. The only thing keeping Bet sane is her relationship with her therapist, who encourages her to struggle and survive, despite everything that’s gone wrong. How will Bet discover the truth and bring her enemy to justice before they strike again and, this time, succeed?