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#NewRelease from Liz Flaherty - PATCHES OF RED

  • 1 day ago
  • 4 min read

A #NewRelease from Liz Flaherty is always welcome! I'm very happy to welcome Liz back to Journeys with Jana to talk about PATCHES OF RED, book 2 in the Harper Loch Trilogy. Welcome Liz!


Patchwork letters spell Patches of Red, with a book cover, preorder link, and soft blue floral background.

One of the questions writers get asked is if their characters are based on real people. I always think mine are not—other than my friend Debby Grosvenor is Suzanne in The Girls of Tonsil Lake, which I didn’t actually mean to do but did anyway.


However, I have to admit that most of my people come from bits and pieces of others I know. Ellie, for instance, from Patches of Red, has just left her job as a nurse practitioner. This was not intended, really (kind of like Debby and Suzanne), but Maureen, who had been our nurse practitioner for many years, did take it upon herself to retire. She didn’t check with us to see if we minded (we did) or if we were going to be okay (we weren’t)—she just up and left. She warned us several months ahead of time, but still …


When my sister passed away, Maureen came to the funeral home. She hugged us, she talked about my sister, she spent time with my nieces. With me. She mourned with us.

So there you have Ellie. Not completely, but there are suggestions of Maureen in Ellie. In her red hair. In her sense of humor. In what she did when she lost patients.


I cry some. I go to the funeral, or the celebration of life, whatever the family has. I pray. I don’t journal like my mother did, but I do write down dates of death and something about them.


Ellie has an edge to her, too, that reminds me of not only Maureen but of my sister. She is, in Maggie’s story, a most excellent best friend. In her own story, I feel as if she still is. I loved the time I spent with her. I hope you do, too.


Blurb:

He’s handsome but can’t even remember her name. She’s pretty, but her finickiness drives him crazy. And yet …


After twenty years as a nurse practitioner in the same practice, Ellie Wentz gives notice. When office politics interferes with her job, it’s time to get a new one. When her son and daughter-in-law buy her house and she has sold and given away everything else that’s not attached to her heartstrings, she packs up what remains and goes to Harper Loch to spend time with her best friend. She’ll decide what to do and where to go from there. No matter how much the handsome friend of her friends annoys her.


Jesse Grant comes to Harper Loch to help out his niece for a few weeks. He’s retired from the navy, his boys are grown, and he’s at loose ends. But he really likes the little lake community in Michigan—he thinks he might stay. Long widowed, he has no interest in getting married again, and neither does the redhead he can’t seem to avoid. And yet again…


Book promo for Patches of Red by Liz Flaherty, with quilt shop cover art, a quote, and an illustrated shop labeled Amelia’s Nine Patch.

Buy links:


Excerpt:

Although the air was still warm, he wore a hooded sweatshirt and jeans when he rode one of the boys’ Indians around the lake.


Ellie was on her porch. She wore an Amelia’s Nine Patch sweatshirt and jeans. She looked as tired as she had sounded on the phone. And delighted. “I haven’t been on a bike for years.” She approached the shiny machine, and he pulled her in for a kiss before unhooking the second helmet.


“Then it’s time. We have about thirty minutes before dinner’s ready. Let’s make use of it.”


They talked while they drove to Placer and back. The only motorcycle he’d ever owned had been a Honda that might or might not have been older than he was, but he’d ridden others through the years. The Indians the boys had were either new or almost new, and they rode … nice. The Bluetooth connection for communication made the ride even better.


“Kinda fun,” he said, “tooling around with a redhead with long legs. There’s a straightaway up ahead. Want to see if we can rev it up a little?”


“Are you going to get us arrested?”


The laughter in her voice, a little breathy, a little wild, messed with his head. No, he didn’t want a relationship, but he liked what Ellie Wentz made him feel. “Might be fun,” he said, “but I have to cop to it being too long since I was on a bike to take that kind of chance. The speed limit, though—I can do that. Adventure enough?”


“I’m in.”


“Hang on.”


Jess knew about memories. The two guys back at the house and their mother had given him a lifetime of good ones. Sadie and her family had provided more. The navy and Phelps had sweetened some days, soured others, but taught him so many lessons that at some point he’d stopped regretting that he’d never gone to college. Painting and drawing had sometimes been a lifeline and were still a pleasure.


But he thought he’d never forget cruising down the two-lane highway with Ellie’s arms loosely around his waist, the sound of her voice and that delicious laugh in his ear. He was honest enough to admit he missed the physical and mental capacities he’d enjoyed in his twenties and thirties, but he was coming to realize there were tradeoffs with aging.


Bio & personal links:


Woman in a blue sweater and sunglasses sits on rocky shore by a calm blue ocean under a clear sky.

Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time sewing, quilting, and doing whatever else she wants to. She and Duane live in the old farmhouse in North Central Indiana they moved to in 1977. They’ve talked about moving, but really…40-some years’ worth of stuff? It’s not happening!


She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please come and see her at:


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