Liz Flaherty: A Soft Place to Fall

Life is new and wonderful for writer Liz Flaherty these days. She retired from the post office in 2011, promptly gained 15 pounds—she swears it was overnight—and promised her grandchildren, The Magnificent Seven, that she would make each of them a bed-size quilt. She also planned to write all day, every day.

What was she thinking?

She’s learned to write when she feels like it, sew when she feels like it, and maybe even to eat a little less. She’s learned to share the house and sometimes even the kitchen with Duane, her husband of, oh, lots of years.

And she’s having a Very, Very Good Time.

Her fifth book ONE MORE SUMMER, has been released to exciting reviews by Carina Press. She is thrilled to the point everyone she knows rolls their eyes as soon as she opens her mouth. JAR OF DREAMS, will be out in January, followed shortly by A SOFT PLACE TO FALL, and she hasn’t annoyed hardly anyone about that yet.

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I didn’t mean to write an inspirational romance. Truly, I didn’t. When I got the first “germ” of Early’s story years ago, I thought it was pretty much like any other reunion story (my favorite kind). Early and her husband Nash would be a young couple just entering their thirties who suddenly realized they didn’t love each other anymore, didn’t even recognize the person on the other side of the sugar bowl. I remembered looking at my husband a few times in those days, wondering who he was and what I’d been thinking when I married him. (He says he wondered the same things—can you imagine?)

But that’s not how A SOFT PLACE TO FALL ended up. Early, Nash, and the Lord had other ideas.

Early McGrath, 46, professional wife, mother, and grandmother, finds herself living in a house she hates in a subdivision she hates more. Even worse, she’s divorced—at Nash’s request—from the man she’s loved since her sophomore year in high school, the father of her four children, her best friend.

She wants to change, but she’s been a nurturer too long, and when Nash’s father suffers a heart attack and requires surgery, she moves back to the rural area where she grew up to care for him. To old friends and a new quilt shop and the church where she married Nash. To God.

A SOFT PLACE TO FALL is about Early and Nash’s journey back. And forward. It will be released soon by Harbourlight Books.

Thanks for stopping by, and thank you, Cheryl, for having me. Congratulations on your anniversary. Not just your blogging one, but for all the others we celebrate as we…gain experience.  I value your friendship.

Visit me at http://lizflaherty.com or at http://wordwranglers.blogspot.com/ where I blog every Monday.