Review ~ LOVE GARAGE by Liz Crowe

The Love Brothers by Liz Crowe

Series tag line: The Love Brothers: A family saga with humor, heat and heart—not to mention beer, bourbon and basketball!

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 fund 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.

www.lizcrowe.com  *  www.brewingpasssion.com 

Facebook * Facebook Fan Page * Twitter

www.a2beerwench.com * Liz's Amazon Page 

Love Garage

Book 1

January 5, 2015 (ebook and audio)

March 14, 2015 (Print) 

PRE-ORDER LOVE GARAGE

Blurb

Antony Love is the quintessential responsible oldest brother of a boisterous, Italian/Irish family, placed in charge at a young age by his parents who are busy running the family business. He manages his siblings with a fair but iron hand, until his life is shattered by personal tragedy leaving him the shell of the man he once was.

When outspoken matriarch Lindsay Halloran Love falls ill, the youngest brother Aiden shows up at Antony's garage, having dropped out of school (again), needing work and a place to crash. Antony provides both, with three caveats: "Don't smoke in my truck, don't be late for work, and don't mess with my girlfriend."

But Aiden Love, budding novelist, gets one glimpse of Rosalee Norris, young widow of Antony's lifelong best friend and all bets are off. Set in horse country near Lexington, Kentucky, The Love Brothers Series is a saga of family devotion that runs as wide and deep as the Ohio River--except on Sundays when brothers Antony, Kieran, Dominic and Aiden work out their frustrations on the basketball court, Love brother style.

Coach Love

Book 2

January 5, 2015 (ebook and audio)

March 14, 2015 (Print)

Pre-order Coach Love

Blurb

The smoldering intensity of first love ~ the forbidden fantasy of temptation ~ the cold hard facts of real life. When one man’s hopes are dashed apart in a split second after years spent chasing a dream, he returns home to Kentucky furious at the world and everyone around him.
 
Kieran Francesco is the middle son of the volatile, tight-knit Halloran-Love family. His role as peacemaker and the one true athlete is well established. He now faces life devoid of the sport he adores after a horrific, career-ending accident, which places him in a new and entirely uncomfortable position—that of the brother with no future.

Over the course of a few tumultuous months Kieran is plunged back into life at the center of the Love family, where he must cope with one self-destructive brother, one ill-timed reconnection to an old flame and a series of bad choices that land him in more trouble than he’d ever known existed.

COACH LOVE, book 2 of The Love Brothers, a family saga of sibling loyalty that runs as deep and wide as the Ohio River—at least until Sunday, when Antony, Kieran, Dominic and Aiden work out their frustrations at the weekly Love brother pick-up basketball game.


Love Brewing

Book 3

March 1, 2015 (ebook and audio)

March 14, 2015 (Print)

ARC available January 10, 2015

Blurb:

Every family has one—the black sheep, the problem child, the prodigal. But Dominic Sean Love could teach all of those guys a lesson or two. Stuck in the middle of a boisterous group of siblings, he’s given “acting out” a new meaning from the day he drew his first breath.

While he’s the one son who follows his strict father’s footsteps into the Love family business, he’s also the one who butts heads with him the hardest. Their epic clashes are the stuff of family legend. But they have made peace and work side by side to take Love Brewing to the next level of success.

Until Dominic does the one thing his father can never forgive.

Diana Brantley has been Dominic’s friend, girlfriend and ex-girlfriend so many times she’s lost count. When he shows up at the farm she’s slowly transforming into a wildly popular farm-to-
table resource for restaurants all over the U.S. her first impulse is to shoot first and ask questions later. But she doesn’t. And their lives entwine once more, for good, bad and ugly. 

And coming late summer 2015

FAMILY LOVE (ebook, audio and print)

Love Garage Excerpt:

Love Garage opened bright and early the next morning, a Saturday, a day Aiden had hoped to spend recovering.

“I get so many oil changes and random small jobs on Saturdays, it doesn’t make sense to be closed and let the jackasses with the Quickilube at Walmart get the business,” Antony insisted when Aiden groaned with dismay upon being awakened after two hours of drunken sleep. It didn’t help that the awakening occurred at the business end of a thrown pillow. “Get up, Romeo. You owe me rent money.”

He did, slowly, queasily hitting a shower, sore all over, his skin mottled from bug bites. But nothing topped the glorious agony of a bourbon hangover like the one that had him firmly in its evil grasp.

He slouched out the door, cursing Antony, cursing Tricia, cursing her ex-husband for throwing her in his path last night. But mostly cursing his own weak-ass uselessness. He rested his head against the cool comfort of the truck window until Antony hit a bump or two, which sent extra pain jolting down his spine.

“Sorry,” his brother muttered, glancing over at him.

“No, you’re not.”

“Got me there. And you’d better warn me if you’re about to toss your cookies. I won’t have that in my vehicle, got me?”

Aiden rubbed his neck and nodded, swallowing the urge to throw up all over the pristine interior on principal. “Why d’you hate me so much? You used to like me.” He stared over at his brother, heart thumping, ears humming, throat closing up with nausea. He despised waking up still drunk.

“I don’t hate you.” Antony turned onto the main road headed into town.

“Could’ve fooled me. You’re a real asshole anymore. Worse than Dom.”

Antony merely shrugged, not rising to that tried-and-true bait. So they spent the rest of the ride to the garage in silence. Once there, Antony sat gripping the wheel. Aiden waited, hoping he’d get something out of him—something he would assure him that the man he thought he remembered as the protective, funny, and loving guy he’d grown up with still existed inside the guy walking around wearing Antony’s skin.

Finally, he let go of the wheel, exhaled, and squared his shoulders as if prepping for battle.

Aiden made a mental note to talk to Kieran about how badly Antony had descended into his life of non-stop mourning and jerk-hood.

“So, Rosalee, not putting out for you or what? You need to get laid maybe? Knock the edge off?”

The glare Aiden got for saying those particular words did make him worry Antony might punch his aching head through the passenger-side window.

He clenched his jaw in the way Aiden remembered from their childhood. “That is so far outside the realm of your business as to be in another galaxy. Get to work and don’t say her name to me again.”

And with that, Aiden was left with the fleeting thought that mentioning Rosalee directly was probably not a good idea. He surely didn’t need Antony to guess that her name was on his lips, or front and center of his mind.

He shook his head—a Bad Plan because it summoned the pounding agony back with a vengeance. Groaning, he climbed out and shuffled over to the door.

A new day began at Love Garage.

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 My Thoughts:

I really like the dynamics of the Love family and the characters in this book. Without giving too much away I have to say that I had a hard time with some of their actions.

There was much confusion about how the characters felt and what they thought they were supposed to feel and a certain brother was just going through motions and he was selfish and I mostly could not stand him. It was bad enough that he didn't really feel for Rosalee what he should have, but he did things that were awful all the while knowing that someone else would have loved her properly but preventing it.

Don't get me wrong, the other brother was wrong as well and so was Rosie.

It all could have been avoided if these people would have been grown ups and communicated.

I was compelled to read this book. I had to find out who Rosie would end up with and what happened with the other brothers too.

I really loved Rosie's character other than her being confused as to her feelings for the two brothers. She was a good mom, she always took the time to help out and she was passionate.

I loved Lyndsay as well. She was the perfect matriarch. :-) As you know I get really passionate about characters and very often they make or break a book for me. In this case, I really liked the characters. 

There was lots of sibling rivalry, bickering between brothers, sexy steamy scenes, some romance, back stabbing, cheating, some sickness, an adorable little boy who was quite a handful, and plenty of emotion wrenching going on through all of that.

I will definitely be reading the other books in the series! 

I received an ecopy in exchange for my honest opinion. I was hooked from the beginning and even though I got frustrated with their actions here and there, I really liked it and will be eagerly awaiting the next book.
 

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