Book Title: Good Faith
Author: Liz Crowe
Genre: New Adult
Release Date: November 2013
Hosted by: Book Enthusiast Promotions
Author: Liz Crowe
Genre: New Adult
Release Date: November 2013
Hosted by: Book Enthusiast Promotions
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.”
Amazon
best-selling author, beer blogger and beer marketing expert, mom of three, and
soccer fan, Liz Crowe lives Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales
and fun- raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat
trailing spouse.
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 at 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.
Good Faith
By Liz Crowe
Excerpt
All Rights Reserved
Good
Faith by Liz Crowe
All
Rights Reserved
That
morning his father had roused him from a sound sleep. He’d blinked, confused,
by the angle of the sunlight. He rarely slept much past eight since he usually
had some sort of training or the other.
“Let’s
go son. Time for lunch.”
Brandis
had dragged himself up, his limbs feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds
each. His brain buzzed with a strange sort of energy, his typical state, and
not at all welcome considering it normally didn’t hit him until later in the
day. The conversation his father began as soon as they were seated at their
usual diner did not help.
“So,
listen, Brandis. These girls…Katie’s friends from college….”
Brandis
sipped his ice water, waiting for his father to finish the thought. His heart
pounded, and his face flushed hot with embarrassment.
Jack
sighed, as if exasperated that Brandis didn’t pick up the thread on his own,
leaving him to carry on with the awkwardness about to ensue. Then he leveled
his gaze, his face open, not angry or judgmental. “I think that you may be in
for some…I mean, they’re…shit.”
“If
you are gonna tell me where babies come from again,” Brandis said, after
deciding to ease his father’s obvious distress. He cocked an eyebrow and half a
smile. Jack seemed to relax somewhat as Brandis continued. “Don’t bother. I
already know.”
He
flashed his brightest smile up at the middle-aged woman who stood at their
table, coffee pot in hand. She blinked rapidly at him, and at that precise
moment, Brandis got his first flash of…something…about his power. Up until now
he’d merely been “Brandis the trouble maker, the causer of strife.” Suddenly,
he felt strong, amazingly so, stronger than even the man sitting across from
him, a taller, older version of himself. His body tingled all over, as he
tested the smile out again on the woman, making her slop some coffee out onto
the table. His father frowned, but then chuckled as the woman walked away after
they gave their orders.
“Son,”
he said, leaning back and cradling the coffee mug to his chest. “Your adventure
has only just begun.”
“Huh?”
Brandis picked up his cup but didn’t drink any. He hated coffee, but had
ordered it in a burst of need to be more like Jack. As he sipped the bitter
stuff, he was transported back years before when he and his dad would spend
every single Saturday morning together, eating breakfast at this very diner. He
had adored the man, he remembered distinctly. His chest hurt at the simplicity
of their relationship then. He looked away from Jack’s deep blue, knowing gaze.
The
subject changed of its own accord, and Brandis let it. Although part of him
wanted to ask for advice, a much bigger part would not allow the words past his
lips.
They
ate, discussing the upcoming football season and Brandis’ part in it. The
recruiting company Jack had contracted last year to video his every move would
start up with the first game. He’d made varsity again, technically as backup
quarterback to a senior boy. Brandis didn’t see this as a setback and had every
intention of starting under center by the second or third game.
Finally,
when they pushed their empty plates back and sat looking at each other, Brandis
felt more comfortable in his father’s presence than he had been in a long time.
Jack said, “I am pretty sure at least one of those girls sleeping in the
basement is determined to change the status of your virginity for you probably
as soon as tonight.”
Brandis
choked on the last sip of lukewarm coffee. His face burned, and his body
tingled again. “I’m…it’s…uh….” He clutched the napkin in his lap unable to meet
his father’s eyes.
He
resisted the urge to protest, to proclaim his innocence of such things. Because
he wanted it back—those mornings between them, father and son, man and boy, not
this awkward, man and almost-man bullshit. Because while the thought of one of
his sister’s college friends popping his cherry remained a pleasant fantasy, it
also made him feel older than he wanted to be right then.
“So,
I bought a box of condoms this morning,” Jack went on. “Put some downstairs in
the side table drawer and the rest in your room. Use them please.” He sipped
the last of his coffee, looked as if he were about to get up, then leaned
forward, touching Brandis’ wrist. “Have fun. Don’t be an asshole to women. Let
every experience teach you…something. Because you are nothing as a man if you
don’t learn from every woman you…love.” Jack looked out the window onto the
nearly empty parking lot. Then he turned back, tightened his grip on his son’s
arm. “God, you are so…young.” His face fell a moment, then he perked up again,
his eyes twinkling. “Okay, so, your mother told me to tell you not to let them
corrupt you. But all I’m gonna say is this: always wear protection, no matter
what, no matter how much you don’t want to. And don’t let your mom catch you in
the act. I’ll handle her otherwise.”
Then
he let go, stood and smiled, draping a friendly arm around Brandis’ shoulders
as they exited the restaurant.
“You
really didn’t tell me you were admiring Katie’s friend’s ass, did you, Dad?”
“No,
son. I most certainly did not. You obviously misheard me.” Jack winked as he
stood by the passenger’s side of his classic Corvette convertible and tossed
the keys to Brandis. “Remember what I told you. Don’t ride my clutch.”
Hosted by:
No comments:
Post a Comment