Be My Guest - Liz Flaherty with Shades of Green

I'm sitting on the porch today with my writing friend, Liz Flaherty, who is celebrating the release of the third book in her Colors, the Harper Loch Trilogy. We're going to chat a bit about Shades of Green and share a little teaser so you can go grab a copy of this fabulous book, which is now available.

Shades of Green, Book 3 of Colors, the Harper Loch Trilogy

Romance or Women’s Fiction? Inspirational Romance … Or Not?

I made a discovery when I went digging through Cari’s story to find suitable excerpts to go on blog visits with. Although Shades of Green is—to me, anyway—very much a romance, it dives way over into the women’s fiction aisle when it’s relating what happens in the book. A part of me thinks I should apologize for this in case any of the readers are disappointed, but the bigger part isn’t at all sorry. While I understand that in many people’s minds, there’s a big gap between romance and women’s fiction, I don’t even think it’s a crack in the sidewalk. Unless the romance is MM, it is the woman’s journey. That’s what I like to write, including all the backroads and bumpy spots. Also … now, you’ve got me started … Cari is a pastor at Harper Loch Community Church. She is religious. Her life is one of service. But Shades of Green is not an inspirational book. It is a love story, but it is not Christian fiction. It is not her journey in faith. She lives that one every day, but it’s hers. It’s not the hero’s or anyone else’s. She does get asked to pray for meals and for other things, no one swears (much) in front of her, and no one has any idea she might know what sex is. But that’s not the story, either. The story is, as I said above, one woman’s journey. It was so much fun to write. I hope it’s fun to read, too.

Blurb:
    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:
    I called Zack.
    “How did it feel?” I asked when he answered. “Losing your mother before you actually lost her?”
    The question was awkward at best, thoughtless at worst. I hoped he knew what I was asking.
    He was silent for a moment, then he said quietly, “Her eyes still smiled, even when she couldn’t anymore. Her expression changed when she looked at each of us. She and Pop could always talk, even without words, and they kept us aware of what was happening the whole time. He had to work a lot, but my grandparents helped—Mom’s parents and Pop’s stepmother—and they managed things so that—”
    He stopped, and I could almost feel him choosing his words. “We remained a family throughout,” he said finally. “We grieved. Of course, we did. But it wasn’t just Mom who was sick; rather, we were a family with ALS. I can honestly say that as rough as it was, there was good in almost every day.”
    I thought of Adria and Dad laughing together while he held the yarn and she rolled it into a ball. I could say that, too; moreover, I should say it. Of course I had issues with my growing-up years, but those issues were way beyond their expiration date by now. Besides, didn’t everybody have issues with how they’d grown up?
    Zack chuckled, and his voice was soft with memory. “The year before she died, when she was in a wheelchair, but could still talk some, she wanted to go trick-or-treating with us even though we didn’t do that anymore. So Lessie, Pop’s stepmom, dressed Mom up like Whistler’s Mother in that painting and had Luke and me decked out like Santa’s elves, only we were whistlers instead of elves, and we whistled all over the neighborhood. There are pictures, but you wouldn’t want to see them.”
    I laughed, trying to picture the Grant brothers as elves.
    “Pop and Mom went into marriage with lessons learned and crazy in love with each other,” said Zack. “It wasn’t all that long before they found out their forever wasn’t going to be very long, so they made every day count.”
    I knew how important that was. I preached how important it was.
    Cemetery lanterns danced in the breeze outside. I didn’t like them much when they started showing up. I felt like they took away from the peacefulness of the burial place, but I got used to them.
    DeMaris had sat at her daughter’s grave for a long time when she was here. When I finally asked if I could help her, she shook her head and reached to touch the lantern that hung on a sturdy shepherd’s hook. “John got this,” she said. “She was always a little afraid of the dark.”

    After that conversation, I liked the gentle lights; I didn’t just tolerate them. I made sure they stayed lit when it was dark.

    I couldn’t do that much for Dad and Adria, but I could make sure the lights she needed in the house stayed on at night and I could find the good. 

    “Thank you, Zack,” I said, missing him. “I think you just got me through something.”
    “Good.”
    I wanted to ask when he was coming. Again. I seemed to want to do that a lot. But I didn’t want to sound too eager, much less needy. 

    “I’ll be in Friday night,” he said, reading my mind again. He seemed to do that. “Luke and I are both working till noon and we’re flying out at three. Pop and Ellie are picking us up. See you Saturday?”
    I was still smiling when I hung up a few minutes later. Finding the good in this day didn’t take long.

About Liz:
Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time thinking about writing and wanting to travel. The author of 20-some books 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!