On Tour: Liz Crowe's Stewart Realty Anthology, Voices, an Excerpt, and a Giveaway!

Check out the other stops on the tour here.

Stewart Realty: Life in the House Lane

Love is an easy word to use, a hard one to demonstrate, and sometimes impossible to trust.

The Stewart Realty series is a sweeping epic, encompassing many years in the lives of two people who know how to love with their bodies, how to please and get pleasure, to control and be controlled. When it comes to the deeper meaning of the one word they both need, backgrounds and personalities get in the way.While their physical connection sizzles they somehow manage to continuously disappoint one another on an emotional level.

Jack Gordon has it all—money, success, a string of women—but also a deep longing for something more. When he thinks he finds it with Sara Jane Thornton, his world is never the same again. Sara releases a side of himself he considered buried out of frustration and unhappiness. Sara soon learns that she must trust him implicitly, something she cannot do, no matter how many times she tries...and he fails.

With a rich cast of secondary characters, including a young man who presents a near-perfect foil to Jack's intensity, and who falls hard for Sara, The Stewart Realty series is a saga with an emphasis on contemporary life with a healthy dose of realistic eroticism. A tale of modern, busy, driven people seeking the ever-elusive and highly coveted combination—a friend, lover and trusted companion who will be there for the long haul.

Start at the beginning, with the Jack and Sara Trilogy, now for the first time ever in a print anthology. The Stewart Realty series is a best seller in family saga and urban fiction categories. See for yourself what the buzz is all about.

Purchase Stewart Realty Anthology

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Welcome to The Book Bag, Liz. I am so excited to feature your Stewart Realty Anthology today. I like to ask writers a question and I love to hear their answers.Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

I have heard other authors say that they 'hear voices in their head' and that is how they write their books: the characters are telling their stories. Not being a writer myself, that concept has always intrigued me.

When some people hear voices, we get them medical attention, others end up becoming writers. Does this happen to you? How do you come up with your stories?

Voices

Scene in a Hallway

By Liz Crowe

The concept of having “voices in my head” that give me ideas is a funny one. I suppose that is true on a certain level. But for me, it’s more about scenes or probable and compelling scenarios that appear, more or less fully executed, that give me initial ideas for books.

For example, the Stewart Realty series, that has grown from it’s original 3-book trilogy to a whopping family saga of a thing at 9 books including a free back story prequel began with just that: a single scene.

I was still in the real estate business myself when I concocted this particular set of characters. And as such I had plenty of time to sit and ponder things, at open houses, or while trying to drum up business via emails or direct mailings or other mind-numbing tasks done while waiting for the phone to ring as the agent “on floor.” One day, bored out of my skull, I glanced down the hallway of my office and had a flash of an image — of 2 highly driven agents, over worked and at the office late having a hot moment leaning against that wall.

For those of you who've read this series, you should know that it took over a dozen revisions and rewrites prompted by rejections from half a dozen agents and all the major and semi-major publishers to get it anywhere near the point that you got to read it. It’s a process, this writing to publication thing, with steps that really should not be skipped.

But I digress.

That was my first “what if” moment that became a scene and started me down the road creating Jack Gordon and Sara Thornton, the uber, power couple of this entire series. (Funnily enough their names appeared out of the mist, all at once and I've never changed them.) I've had a lot of them since, not just for this series, but for all of my 20 plus book back list. However this series really holds a special place in my heart. It was my first (to write, not to get published). And is among the best of what I've ever done, all the way up to and including the epic and fans-carrying-pitchforks and torches moments of the final novel, Good Faith which released last November.

This trilogy is the true North of the thing though. The beginning, where as Good Faith is most definitely the end of the decades spanning story arc of Jack and Sara. I hope you get a chance to read and enjoy it soon!

Good Faith is on sale for only $.99!!

GOOD FAITH, Liz's final, epic, mainstream fiction novel of the Stewart Realty series continues to enthrall readers and reviewers. As part of the re-release of the first 3 books of the series that focus on Jack and Sara's early years, her publisher is offering GOOD FAITH for just $0.99 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for the month-long duration the tour.

You do not have to "know" these characters to appreciate Good Faith. But a great way to get to know them is to start with re-released anthology and then read Good Faith. It's not every day you can get a long, juicy, well-crafted novel for just a buck. But thanks to this tour, you can, for just 4 weeks.

Purchase Good Faith

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Excerpt from Sweat Equity 

(Stewart Realty Series (Book 2):

Sara smiled at the man lying next to her. He'd taken her world and yanked it into his orbit so hard and fast her head still spun some days. God help her she did love him despite her inner turmoil. She put a hand on his sweat-slicked chest and draped a leg over his. She propped up on her elbow and touched his check.

"Hmm?" his sleepy voice reminded her how much they both needed more shut eye having passed out rather than actually rested last night. He pulled her close. "I'm sorry," he muttered into her hair. "It's just." She nodded into his shoulder. "Shit week, you know. All this wedding talk is not my thing or something. I don't know. I do know I don't deserve you."

"Yeah, that is true. Look, we still have dinner with my parents tonight. My dad is a know-it-all doctor. I dread having the two of you in the same room, frankly, but we have to do it. They're my family and they want to meet you."

She felt him tense beneath her.

"That's fine. I'll be on my best behavior. But I don't want him paying for any of this," he swept a hand towards the small table where she'd piled up magazines and spreadsheets of wedding planning paraphernalia. "I'm doing it. You're grown, not some little girl needing daddy's money anymore."

She bit her lip. "If he wants to I'm not going to stop him. It's his prerogative. Can't you just go with it?" She sat up, swung her legs to the floor.

He sang the same song, different verse, every time. They'd fight, he'd make up by making love to her. She'd let him. They wouldn't talk about it. Again.

Sighing she stood, stretched her sated and tingling body, her mind on the massive list of shit to do today. Glancing over her shoulder, she allowed herself a long look at the man who would be her husband.

His six-foot five-inch frame firm, legs and arms covered with a light dusting of black hair; torso mostly bare, but for a line of jet-black hair beneath his navel leading down to the part of his body that he had, apparently, shared with so many. Her eyes trailed up, to his firm, square jaw, in need of a shave. Her palm itched to reach out, feel the sandpapery rasp of it, keeping him real.

How completely unreal this still seemed, even now after he'd given her yet another mind-boggling set of back-to-back orgasms. That should've been solid evidence he was there, with her, "hers" even. But he wasn't. That small voice in her head, the "Old Sara," with its nagging and worry, poked her psyche once again. You're too alike. It will never work. Jack's eyes opened, at the sound of his own light snore. His sleepy grin made her smile in spite of her heavy heart.

She was no sap. Her own parent's relationship had made her a cynic to the extreme when it came to men. She knew it. She fully acknowledged her own emotional constipation. Yet, she let the man who currently held her heart in his large, talented hands tug her down onto the bed, into the circle of his arms. His skin, smell, and feel eased her as always. She closed her eyes just for a few minutes.

Giveaway Time!!

LIZ WILL CHOOSE FROM AMONG COMMENTERS ACROSS THE ENTIRE TOUR AND AWARD THE FOLLOWING PRIZES IN MID-MARCH:

• 2 signed copies of the new Stewart Realty “Jack & Sara Trilogy” print anthology (U.S. ONLY)

• Audible.com downloads for each of the first 3 books in the series (available internationally) Liz's Page on Audible.com

• 1 signed print copy OR 1 eBook copy of GOOD FAITH, the critically acclaimed final novel of the Stewart Realty series (e-book available internationally, print is U.S. only)

• 1 Stewart Realty SWAG PACK complete with “I heart Ann Arbor mug” (U.S. only) and more!

About the Author

Amazon best-selling author, beer blogger and beer marketing expert, mom of three, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great Midwest, in a major college town. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse. While working as a successful Realtor, Liz made the leap into writing novels about the same time she agreed to take on marketing and sales for the Wolverine State Brewing Company.

Most days find her sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, unless she’s writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications.

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 many 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.

If you are in the Ann Arbor area, be sure and stop into the Wolverine State Brewing Co. Tap Room—but don’t ask her for anything “like” a Bud Light, or risk serious injury.

Connect with Liz

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon
Writing Blog | Beer Blog

Facebook Pages

Author Page | Fan Page | Jack Gordon's Page

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

On Tour: Book Spotlight, an Excerpt, and a Giveaway! Good Faith by Liz Crowe

Good Faith

Strong personalities—volatile marriages—stressful careers—conflicting goals—difficult children.

Contemporary challenges facing close-knit families form the crucible that forges a new generation.

Brandis, Gabriel, Blair and Lillian emerge from the entanglement of their parents’ longstanding emotional connections, but one’s star will burn brighter – and hotter – than the others.

With a personality that consumes everyone and everything in its path, Brandis Gordon struggles to maintain control as he ricochets between wild success and miserable failure. His life proves how even the strongest relationships can be strangled by the ties that bind.

Brandis and Gabe Frietag are as close as any brothers, bound by both loyalty and fierce rivalry. The strength of their ultimate alliance is tested time and again by Brandis’ choices.

Companions from birth, Blair Frietag and Lillian Robinson share loner tendencies, but come to rely on each other through adolescence. As they mature, both are forced to confront their feelings for the men they knew as boys.

Somewhere between the tangle of good memories and bad, independence and addiction, optimism and despair, the intertwined destinies of the new generation finally collide, leaving some stronger, others broken, but none unscathed.

As a chronicle of three families navigating the minefields of teen years into the turbulence of young adulthood, Good Faith holds up a literary mirror to contemporary life with joys and temptations unflinchingly reflected. Its fresh, real-life voice portrays the sheer volatility of human nature, complete with the hopes, dreams, and unexpected setbacks of marriage, parenthood and “coming of age.”

Purchase Good Faith

Amazon | B&N

Excerpt 

Blair dropped back on the bed and shut her eyes forcing herself to recall happier moments, better times. “You’re so laid back,” her father used to say to her when she still paid attention. “So relaxed.” He would smile as she worked alongside him in their kitchen. While the restaurant irritated her, she used to adore cooking with him, just to the two of them, and baking made her the happiest. “I wish I were more like you.” He’d flick flour from his fingers at her making her giggle and flush with happiness at his attention. 

Later, he would accuse her of being “detached” and not willing to have any kind of confrontation even to defend herself. But who cared what he thought? She rolled to her side, picking up her phone as it buzzed with a text. 

Hey loser, Brandis had sent. She frowned at the tingle that shot down her spine. She deleted it, determined to ignore him. About ten minutes later, he sent another one. You there? 

She sighed and opened her laptop, thinking she’d do some English homework. Her cat jumped into her lap, its usual spot whenever she sat at the desk. The long Saturday stretched out in front of her, endless, boring, and useless. Typically she didn’t mind being alone, treasured her privacy and the time to read or take long walks. But the last few months had been different, frustrating beyond belief as she couldn’t seem to settle or relax, to enjoy herself like she used to. 

Stupid adults. Stupid fathers and their stupid marriage-busting assistants. Stupid mothers and their mealy mouthed blindness to the whole thing. The phone kept buzzing with messages. And she kept ignoring it, something in her holding back, preserving herself from the sucking vortex of Brandis Gordon. She didn’t like texting him. It made her feel awkward, forcing conversation via a few tapped out words on the phone. 

Finally, the phone rang. She sighed and answered it. “What?” she said, her hands shaking with the effort not to launch into a conversation with him. Flirting simply did not come naturally to her. She had no idea how to handle herself around boys, much less the huge, giant, hulking presence of Brandis—football quarterback, high school super stud, and one-time friend. Other than to settle herself with memories of him, of them, as kids, when things were simple. 

His seeming addiction to their strange, late night conversations had confused and thrilled her in equal measure. And she missed them. A lot. 

“You are one hard girl to get hold of,” he said, softly. 

“What do you want, Brandis?” 

“I thought we were gonna stay friends. I mean, we talked about it, after….” 

She winced, wishing she had her brother’s willpower when it came to Brandis’ all-encompassing, some would say, suffocating, personality. “He’s a goddamned drain, an energy suck, a…shithead,” Gabe had said to her, a few days after their huge fight. He’d been sporting a black eye and a split lip from the altercation. A terrible, embarrassing moment for everyone concerned—one that signaled the end of her childhood, best she could tell. 

“Why? What did he say to you?” Blair had begged her brother to tell her. They were close, and she had no qualms asking him. But he’d pressed his lips together, and threatened her with all sorts of dire, brother-inflicted consequences if she even talked to the guy again. So, she never knew. 

Brandis had been on the phone to her within hours, pleading with her to intervene for him, to talk to Gabe, to get him on the phone. She’d enjoyed that moment—when Brandis needed something from her. But it faded, as did his efforts to try to make up with her brother. She’d heard a lot about him lately—drinking, smoking pot, hard partying on every level while still remaining quarterback, and in top, nearly model-perfect physical shape. And of course, all the girls, many of them older, who flocked to him. 

“Blair?” he asked, interrupting her aggravation at the thought of all the females he must have screwed. She knew about the “college girls weekend.” Gabe and Brandis had laughed and joked about it enough in front of her. It made her nauseated with jealous fury and headache-y with embarrassment at her own virginal self. 

“What?” she said again, getting up to pace. “Why do you keep trying to talk to me? We have…nothing in common anymore. You have plenty of girls to talk to. Leave me alone.” She slid down the wall next to her door, her knees weak, like they always got, at the sound of his deep, rumbly voice. 

He’d been a fixture in her life, on vacations, at holidays, camping and fishing in the summer with their dads, going to baseball and football games, just…her friend. The kid with the funny laugh, shock of jet-black hair, and snapping blue eyes who attracted trouble and deflected it with equal equanimity. She had no idea when she’d become aware of him as a compelling member of the opposite sex. 

He’d changed almost overnight, developing a sarcastic streak, a bit of meanness with his endless practical jokes one of which ended with his own sister’s broken wrist. During those strange years, she would catch him staring at her, his eyes dark, puzzled, confused. And when she’d smile and try to draw him out of it he’d blush, run or bike away, usually yelling something about “stupid girls.” And almost always with her brother Gabe in his wake. Anger lit her brain. 

“Seriously, Brandis, what do you want from me?” 

“I want to be your friend still. That’s all. I…miss you guys.” 

“Well then I guess you shouldn’t have said whatever you said that day.” She looked up at the ceiling, willing him not to give up, to stay on the line. 

“I know,” he said, then got quiet. “How is he,” he asked after about thirty seconds. 

“Fine. Busy, working at The Local, playing soccer, hanging with Lillian.” 

“Wow, Lilly-G?” 

“Yeah, I guess.” Blair stretched out on her soft rug, propped her feet on the wall, and settled into the conversation. “My mom’s been going out on dates. It’s stupid.” 

“Well, your dad did….” 

“I know, I know.” 

She heard a shuffling sound as if Brandis were getting comfortable on his end. “And you? How many boyfriends for you now, Miss B?” 

“Please.” She blushed. “Boys don’t notice me. I’m a sophomore. I don’t play sports or do anything cool really.” 

“You play a mean game of Scrabble. I miss that. And I have yet to find a Euchre partner as good as you.” 

She bit down on the urge to invite him over, to eat popcorn, watch a movie cuddled up on the couch like they used to do. But she knew things were altered. Now that “Brandis, the super stud,” had emerged he would never be “Brandis, Blair and Gabe’s friend” ever again. 

“It’s a good thing you aren’t dating,” he declared out of the blue, making her blush again. “That way I don’t have to beat up any punks, you know, who think they can get anywhere with you.” 

“And what makes you think my dating anyone means anything else is happening, hmm?” 

“My sweet and innocent Blair, boys want one thing on a date. And it is not the concept of a good movie or a nice meal. Don’t ever forget that.” His voice lowered a bit, making her shiver. 

“I guess you would know, eh stud?” 

“I, um…I don’t know. Sometimes I wish….” He trailed off. 

“What? That you could walk around town without bumping into some girl you’d ‘dated’? That you didn’t have so many pissed off ex-girlfriends floating around? That you would occasionally go a weekend without getting drunk and screwing your way through a party?”

The silence spilled into her ear like smoke. “Sorry,” she muttered, meaning it. 

“No, it’s okay. I won’t deny it.” A bit of a swagger had snuck into his voice. “Popularity is my middle name.” 

“I thought it was Robert. You know, after my dad? Same as Gabe’s?” 

“Oh, right. Got me there. Listen, Blair, I gotta go. I just…wanted to hear your voice.” 

Aggravation gripped her and held tight. “Why, Brandis? I don’t party. I don’t know how to kiss boys or…anything else. I’m a bookworm, a geek, a science nerd. I like to be by myself, and I don’t run in a pack of popular girls. Hardly worth your time I’d say.” Her face flushed, and she had to put her feet back on the floor to keep her knees from knocking together. 

“Guess that’s why I love you,” he said with a voice so soft she thought he might be talking to himself. 

“Spare me,” she scoffed, suddenly needing to be off the phone. Something about him felt suffocating and needy. While she figured herself for a caretaker, a conflict avoider, someone who liked keeping things simple but wanted the people around her to be happy, suddenly she sensed danger in letting Brandis worm his way any farther into her heart. “Bye.” She hung up, quickly and sat for nearly an hour clutching her phone and calming her racing pulse.

About the author

Amazon best-selling author, beer blogger and beer marketing expert, mom of three, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great Midwest, in a major college town.  She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse. While working as a successful Realtor, Liz made the leap into writing novels about the same time she agreed to take on marketing and sales for the Wolverine State Brewing Company.   

Most days find her sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, unless she’s writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications.  

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 many 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.

If you are in the Ann Arbor area, be sure and stop into the Wolverine State Brewing Co. Tap Room—but don’t ask her for anything “like” a Bud Light, or risk serious injury.

Connect with Liz

Website | Facebook | Twitter 

Brewing Passion | A2 Beer Wench | Romance for Real Life

Giveaway Time!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!