APPRAISED
A Real Estate Romance
By Liz Crowe
100% free to subscribers of
her monthly newsletter November 17, 2015 PLUS again on Liz’s milestone 29+20
birthday December 17, 2015.
APPRAISED is rated NC17 (NOT XXX) for language and adult situations.
How to get a copy:
Sign up! On November 17 AND
December 17 you will receive a link to download this book in your preferred
format, plus the sequel CONTINGENT in early January.
Goodreads Link to leave your
thoughts and recommendations:
Blurb:
Sawyer Callahan is a former
cop turned accounting instructor, part time real estate appraiser and handy
man, and single dad to a teenaged girl. He keeps his once-chaotic life now
firmly under his strict, somewhat OCD control. Until he decides to sell the house
that reminds him too much of his late wife.
Miranda Landon is hot-shot
real estate agent with a relationship-sized chip on her shoulder that she
exorcises, frequently, with the help of as many men as possible.
These two meet, of course.
But what happens may surprise you.
APPRAISED is the first in a
series of 100% FREE Liz Crowe novels told in a unique back-and-forth point of
view style. Real Estate Romance with humor and spice available to subscribers
to Liz’s once-a-month newsletter.
Excerpt
“You know what I think,” Miranda
said, bumping his shoulder companionably. He shook his head and finished his
third, ill-considered beer. He’d not eaten since Kelly’s breakfast this morning
and it was going on eight-thirty. He should go home, be a responsible dad and
make sure his daughter made her grounded curfew. “I think you like me.”
He snorted and set the empty
glass down, motioning for the check as he tugged his wallet out of his gym bag.
“You think too much,” he said, not looking at her. He loved it when women felt
confident enough not to wear makeup in public. And this woman, with the spray
of un-concealed freckles across the bridge of her nose, had done just that,
showering, dressing and meeting him without a stitch of artifice between them.
Helen would hardly ever leave the house without the full compliment of
foundations and whatever else that littered her side of the bathroom vanity,
even if just out for a few groceries.
“No, no, don’t get me wrong,
pal,” she insisted, waving the bartender away when he appeared and turning to
face him so he had the full, breathtaking affect of her cleavage revealed at
the v-neck of a thin T-shirt. “I don’t mean like I’m your type to date or
whatever.”
“Whew, what a relief. I’d hate to
have to be the one to break that to you.” He leaned on the bar, relaxing ever
so slightly for the first time since he’d walked in here and found her sitting,
drinking, and watching sports. He didn’t really like how she made him feel. But
somehow, having broken the ice with the invite for a game and now this
comfortable, friendly round of beers, he was easing into a place in head where
he didn’t feel like he had to guard himself from her. “Since we’re well
established buddies now,” he said, wondering how in the hell this might go and
going for it anyway, “Tell me what made you think hiring a total stranger in a
strange city to fuck you out of your divorce funk was a good idea.”
She blinked, tilted her head,
frowned, and turned away from him. He didn’t move, rolling the eff-bomb around
in his mouth. He rarely used it and wasn’t sure why he’d said it to her now.
Even as a cop all those years hanging out with some of the most foul-mouthed,
foul-tempered men going, he’d maintained his ability to not say words that
flowed from them like water over a cliff. She held up a hand. The bartender
appeared.
“My friend here and I are in need
of something stronger,” she said, pushing their empty pint glasses away. “Do
you have Jefferson Reserve?” She named a bourbon he’d tried a few times, when
someone else was paying, in his typical, tightwad fashion. The guy nodded,
pulled a bottle off a mirrored shelf behind him and grabbed two rocks glasses.
Miranda took them, and got off her barstool. “Come on, pal,” she said,
emphasizing the word a little too much for his taste. “I’ll tell you all of it.
But at a table.”
He grabbed both of their gym bags
and followed her, forcing himself to look at her bobbing, red ponytail and not
the sway of her hips. They sat. She poured them each a small portion and lifted
the glass to her nose, closing her eyes and making him break out in a cold
sweat at the way she caressed the edge of the glass with her lips.
Oh for crying out loud, Callahan. This is not a soap opera. This
woman wants a friend. Be one and get over yourself.
Liz Bio:
Amazon
best-selling author, mom of three, Realtor, beer blogger, brewery marketing
expert, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the
University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of
experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent,
ex-pat trailing spouse.
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.
Don’t
ever ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.
