Around The Fire Book & Author Blog is Dreaming With Liz Flaherty.
It's 92 days until Christmas. It's hard to believe with the extended summer-like weather here in Northern NJ. We sit on the deck, and yes, it does cool down at night, so we light the firepit and listen to the crickets and the chittering and trilling of the Easter Screech Owl who has taken up residence in the woods across the street from me. Saturday night, after a wonderful day at the Hoboken Public Library chatting with readers and authors, we came home, and our neighbors joined us for coffee and coffeecake around the fire. Do we ever solve the problems of the world? Nope. But we dream aloud. Speaking of dreaming, let me introduce today's guest, who doesn't have sugarplums dancing, but a life of hopes and dreams. Welcome, Liz. 
There are dreams I’ve had that didn’t come to pass. They had to do with being thin and having good hair, with being able to sing and dance, with traveling where and when I wanted to. Some of them were about business—at different times, I dreamed of having a bookstore complete with a cafe, a tearoom complete with a gift shop full of affordable things, a Victorian B&B on a lake, and a quilt shop.
In truth, I have absolutely no business having a business. My mind doesn’t work that way. But still … those dreams wandered around in my head and my heart. They still do.
So I write about them. More than once for most of them, and I do a really good job with those businesses. They all succeed, and readers all want to go to them—me included! It was fun naming them. Ones I recall are Tea on Twilight, Cup & Cozy, Keeper Shelf, A Soft Place to Fall, and in A New Kind of Hope, my Christmas novella, Silver Threads & Golden Needles. (Ask me how often that song played in my head while I was writing.)
Fee and Jed’s story was first published as part of a Dickens Holiday Romance anthology. When I wanted a Christmas story this year but ran out of time to write one, I remembered both the couple and Fee’s quilt shop. And I wanted to go back. I hope you’ll pay a visit, too.
A New Kind of Hope
by
Liz Flaherty
Fee and Jed were best friends who fell in love, but that was high school. Life and families and other loves had happened since that dear and distant time. They’re friends again, comfortable with each other and having so much fun at Christmas time in Dickens. They’re not still in love, but…wait…could it be happening again?
A peek between the covers.
They walked downtown, their booted feet crunching on the snow. Jed held her hand much of the time, but released it so often to take pictures that they finally gave up the effort.
“Was it this much fun when we were kids?” he asked as they listened to the high school choir sing a couple songs before going on. “My folks liked coming downtown for this, but I don’t remember us doing it, do you?”
“We didn’t do it. We were too cool. And even when we did, you were taking pictures and I was with girlfriends pretending not to notice guys.”
“Good point.” He put the cover over his camera lens and slipped his arm around her, pulling her in close and holding her gaze. “So? Are you noticing now?”
“Noticing what?” She fluttered her lashes and grinned at him, wondering if there’d ever been a day that he was around that she hadn’t noticed him. And longed for him. And wondered what it would feel like to be as close physically as they were mentally. She’d wondered a whole lot about being close emotionally, too, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not yet, at least.
She wanted to think about the warmth of him at her side, about her heart racing, and about the touch of his finger where it just barely stroked her cheek.
They walked on, talking to old friends and new acquaintances. They stood and watched and laughed uproariously at the snowman-building contest across from the Common.
At a certain time, as if someone had whistled them into silence, the crowd grew quiet and watchful. They waited for the announcements that preceded the tree-lighting, looking around as other lighting in the area dimmed and went dark. Squeals of both fear and excitement came from children. Even the Christmas music that seemed to come from all directions became quiet and promising.
Then the tree lit, thousands of bulbs waking and glowing on the huge fir tree that had held the place of pride on the Common for more years than most anyone in town could remember. Following the universal breath of “ahhhh … ” came cheers and applause.
“Do you need to stop by the store?” asked Jed, as they walked away from the milling crowd.”
“No. Actually, I was invited not to.”
“You want to stop at Marley’s for a drink? It’s a good night for something mulled.”
She waited for just a few beats, her nerves zinging almost painfully. She felt herself blushing—she fully expected she’d be blushing in her coffin—and reached for his hands, holding them and looking down as if something about their joined fingers was completely fascinating.
“I have some cider at home,” she said, “in a slow cooker on the counter with mulling spices in it. And popcorn. And a fireplace even if it doesn’t work. We could pretend. And we could call out for pizza if we were hungry, too. You could—” She stopped, uncertain how to go on. How could a person be thirty-eight years old and scared to ask a man— “You could stay for a while.”
He drew his hands away and lifted them to her face, holding her cheeks so that she had to meet his eyes. Oh, that mesmerizing storm cloud gaze. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it.
Even if she’d wanted to.
“For breakfast?”
She smiled back into his eyes, smoothing their crinkling edges with her fingers. She wasn’t calm when she answered. But she was certain.
“Yes.”
Grab your copy today because remember it's only 92 days.
Amazon: https://a.co/d/2DiAbVy
Everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/bogDg0
More about the author.
Liz Flaherty wanted to shake off the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books.
Well, she writes books.
She lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway. She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide nearly every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that.
You can find her all over the place, but this is easiest: https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty
She’d love to hear from you!
There are dreams I’ve had that didn’t come to pass. They had to do with being thin and having good hair, with being able to sing and dance, with traveling where and when I wanted to. Some of them were about business—at different times, I dreamed of having a bookstore complete with a cafe, a tearoom complete with a gift shop full of affordable things, a Victorian B&B on a lake, and a quilt shop.In truth, I have absolutely no business having a business. My mind doesn’t work that way. But still … those dreams wandered around in my head and my heart. They still do.
So I write about them. More than once for most of them, and I do a really good job with those businesses. They all succeed, and readers all want to go to them—me included! It was fun naming them. Ones I recall are Tea on Twilight, Cup & Cozy, Keeper Shelf, A Soft Place to Fall, and in A New Kind of Hope, my Christmas novella, Silver Threads & Golden Needles. (Ask me how often that song played in my head while I was writing.)
Fee and Jed’s story was first published as part of a Dickens Holiday Romance anthology. When I wanted a Christmas story this year but ran out of time to write one, I remembered both the couple and Fee’s quilt shop. And I wanted to go back. I hope you’ll pay a visit, too.
A New Kind of Hopeby
Liz Flaherty
Fee and Jed were best friends who fell in love, but that was high school. Life and families and other loves had happened since that dear and distant time. They’re friends again, comfortable with each other and having so much fun at Christmas time in Dickens. They’re not still in love, but…wait…could it be happening again?
A peek between the covers.
They walked downtown, their booted feet crunching on the snow. Jed held her hand much of the time, but released it so often to take pictures that they finally gave up the effort.
“Was it this much fun when we were kids?” he asked as they listened to the high school choir sing a couple songs before going on. “My folks liked coming downtown for this, but I don’t remember us doing it, do you?”
“We didn’t do it. We were too cool. And even when we did, you were taking pictures and I was with girlfriends pretending not to notice guys.”
“Good point.” He put the cover over his camera lens and slipped his arm around her, pulling her in close and holding her gaze. “So? Are you noticing now?”
“Noticing what?” She fluttered her lashes and grinned at him, wondering if there’d ever been a day that he was around that she hadn’t noticed him. And longed for him. And wondered what it would feel like to be as close physically as they were mentally. She’d wondered a whole lot about being close emotionally, too, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not yet, at least.
She wanted to think about the warmth of him at her side, about her heart racing, and about the touch of his finger where it just barely stroked her cheek.
They walked on, talking to old friends and new acquaintances. They stood and watched and laughed uproariously at the snowman-building contest across from the Common.
At a certain time, as if someone had whistled them into silence, the crowd grew quiet and watchful. They waited for the announcements that preceded the tree-lighting, looking around as other lighting in the area dimmed and went dark. Squeals of both fear and excitement came from children. Even the Christmas music that seemed to come from all directions became quiet and promising.
Then the tree lit, thousands of bulbs waking and glowing on the huge fir tree that had held the place of pride on the Common for more years than most anyone in town could remember. Following the universal breath of “ahhhh … ” came cheers and applause.
“Do you need to stop by the store?” asked Jed, as they walked away from the milling crowd.”
“No. Actually, I was invited not to.”
“You want to stop at Marley’s for a drink? It’s a good night for something mulled.”
She waited for just a few beats, her nerves zinging almost painfully. She felt herself blushing—she fully expected she’d be blushing in her coffin—and reached for his hands, holding them and looking down as if something about their joined fingers was completely fascinating.
“I have some cider at home,” she said, “in a slow cooker on the counter with mulling spices in it. And popcorn. And a fireplace even if it doesn’t work. We could pretend. And we could call out for pizza if we were hungry, too. You could—” She stopped, uncertain how to go on. How could a person be thirty-eight years old and scared to ask a man— “You could stay for a while.”
He drew his hands away and lifted them to her face, holding her cheeks so that she had to meet his eyes. Oh, that mesmerizing storm cloud gaze. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it.
Even if she’d wanted to.
“For breakfast?”
She smiled back into his eyes, smoothing their crinkling edges with her fingers. She wasn’t calm when she answered. But she was certain.
“Yes.”
Grab your copy today because remember it's only 92 days.
Amazon: https://a.co/d/2DiAbVy
Everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/bogDg0
More about the author.
Liz Flaherty wanted to shake off the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books.
Well, she writes books.
She lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway. She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide nearly every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that.
You can find her all over the place, but this is easiest: https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty
She’d love to hear from you!
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