Author Spotlight: Liz Flaherty Is Here with A New Color!

I love it when Liz Flaherty comes to visit–not just because she’s my bestie, but also because she always bring such wonderful stories with her! This week is not exception as we celebrate the release of Shades of Green, Book 3 in the Harper Loch Colors trilogy!

Retired from the post office, Liz spends non-writing time thinking about writing and wanting to travel more than she does. (No fault of Nan Reinhardt—her Big Red suitcase is always ready to go!) The author of 20-some books, she and her husband Duane share an old farmhouse in North Central Indiana. They do think about moving from there, but they have literally decades of stuff, and they’re just not ready! She 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. You can connect with her at https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty She’s always glad for new friends—and to see her old ones!

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Give Me a Second!

Thanks for having me again, Nan. I’ll start packing soon. Really I will!

Good morning! Thanks for stopping by to visit Nan’s blog and me.

What do you think about secondary characters in a book? Not ones whose names we never hear or who only show up on a page or two, but ones who add depth and color to the stories they live in.

Carter Smith slipped in the back way at Harper Loch. That’s not much of a surprise. My books always have a bunch of secondary characters and I really love that. Just as I think it takes a village to raise a child, I think it takes a community to tell a story. Since I know not everyone feels that way, I’ll understand if you want to go get another cup of coffee while I talk about Carter.

He’s a loner. He doesn’t have much to say for himself. He lives by himself in a small mobile home with a porch on it and he has the prettiest flowers of anyone on Harper Loch. He’s a Vietnam veteran whose life was upended by the experience. He has PTSD, and, in his words, “I’ve heard it said that PTSD takes no prisoners. That’s wrong. It takes them all over the place, in so many ways.”

He lost his marriage and his family to the demons that overtook him, but he has learned to live with the silence of his heart and the darkness of his memories. In Shades of Green, he … I don’t actually know how to put it … but by being the friend others need, he is at least partially free of the burdens he has carried so long. Writing him both brought me to tears and made me happy. I hope you like him, too.

GIVEAWAY! Let’s talk. Tell me how you feel about secondary characters, about your favorites or ones you couldn’t stand. Or if you’d rather skip them altogether. I’ll have a book download from my Amazon page and a prize-in-the-mail for the commenter whose name is drawn. Thanks for reading!

Shades of Green

Pastor Cari Newland’s life is stuck in the middle.

Her friends and parishioners at Harper Loch are mostly older than her thirty-two years… or they’re younger. While she likes being a single minister, she would also like to meet someone who sees her as someone besides “Preach.”

She gets hugged a lot, she realizes, but she never gets held. She’s never been the daughter her parents wanted or the woman her long-ago fiancé needed. Her life is good, but it’s lonely.
Enter handsome navy pilot Zack Grant. Visiting his parents at the lake, he attends a wedding Cari officiates. They talk and they dance and they are … interested. But Zack’s life is a thousand miles away and Cari’s life is firmly in Harper Loch. When interested begins to grow into something more, Cari and Zack must decide how to fit into each other’s world and whether or not they can make a long-distance romance work.

But Cari’s life is in the small lake community in Michigan. Zack’s is in the Florida Panhandle. And neither of them has any intention of changing locations.

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://a.co/d/0dKnw8fA

D2D: https://books2read.com/u/3RRAgL

Excerpt:

Carter Smith came to see me late Veteran’s Day morning. He wore a Vietnam Vet’s hat and had a folder with him. “I know you’re not a priest or even Catholic,” he said, “but there are things I need for someone to know. Can I talk to you?”

“Of course.” I swallowed the dread. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

We sat at the table when the coffee was done. I had my omnipresent notebook and pen. He opened the folder. “This is my will.”

Oh, no.

My expression must have changed, because Carter shook his head. “No, I’m not going anywhere. At least, not that I know of. But spending time with your mother has made me think I need to get my ducks in a row while”—he hesitated, then went on—“I still have a good understanding of ducks.” Then he chuckled, a sound I’d seldom heard. It was a soft sound, gentler than the booming laugh he occasionally surprised me with. “Or a passable understanding, anyway.”

I nodded. “Okay. Adria and Dad went and spent the afternoon with Sam a while back. I think they were drinking beer, but there was something said about ducks, too.”

The chuckle again, and I was charmed by it.

“I only brought the will because I want my property here and a bequest to go to the church for the upkeep of the cemetery. I’ve already seen Sam, so he knows, and so do my kids. I’m sure they will honor it, but I wanted you to have a copy anyway.”

He took another piece of paper out of the folder. I could see the notary stamp at the bottom of it. “My advance directive for while I’m still alive. Just let me go. Sam has power of attorney for everything, but this will work for any final decision. My doctor in Placer and the local hospital as well as the VA have this on file.”

Three more sheets of paper, also notarized, slipped from the folder. He passed them to me. “These are instructions for when I die. Again, my kids know about them, but they likely won’t be here. I’d just as soon you didn’t end up second-guessing yourself because you were afraid you’d done the wrong thing.”

He knew me better than I’d have thought. His folder wouldn’t be the only one in the safe in the parsonage office.

I read the typed sheets, sipping my coffee. The funeral directive was simple. Cremation. Service at the church. Ask Maggie to play “It Is Well with My Soul.” Donations to the high-school writers’ group to be added to an existing scholarship fund that was dispensed at Sadie Laughlin’s discretion. Maggie had already written his obituary, and a copy of it was there, too. It was lovely. I had to stop in the middle of it to compose myself a bit.

“Just fill in the dates,” said Carter, and I grinned at him.

I laid down the sheets and waited.

The business size envelope he withdrew from the folder was old, darkened by time nearly to sepia. It had never been sealed, and the glued flap curled. While there was a stamp in the corner, there was no address, no return address, only the words Sergeant Smith written in trembly block letters in faded black ink. He took a single sheet out of the envelope. It was onion skin, and I could see the single-spaced lines through the back of the folded sheet. Whatever it was had been written by a typewriter. Unless I was mistaken, it had been a manual one.

His hand, tan from working outside all the time, showing its age and how it had been used, trembled when he handed me the sheet of thin paper.

I held it carefully, afraid of damaging it, and began to read. When I got to the last paragraph. I read it, looked at Carter, and read it again. “Carter, is this—” I stopped, not sure what to ask or how to ask it. “Do other people know this?”