Spotlight: House Rules by Liz Crowe

Synopsis

It takes a wealth of collected experiences, emotions, successes and failures to craft the personality of a true Alpha Male

Jack Gordon, real estate broker, licensed builder, Juris Doctorate, has had his fair share of strife. His ability to cope, to fall down and pick himself back up has lead him to a place where he believes he has it all. Friends, money, cars, more women than he can count, and a club in Detroit where he can exorcise his inner demons, fill his days and his nights.

When he walks up to a penthouse door on a hot Ann Arbor summer afternoon, frustrated, exasperated and ready to call it quits after hours of condo shopping with a wealthy couple, the last thing on his mind
is meeting his destiny.

House Rules: The Jack Gordon Story. A prequel novella of the Stewart Realty Series.

Excerpt

Rated R for content/language:

     “Jack!” He heard his name, rolled over, tried to hug her close. But his hand found air. “Jack! God damn it.” Something hit his head, and then again.
     “Cut it out.” He grabbed at it, still half asleep, aching deep in his muscles, his cock raw and sore under the sheet. “Go the hell away.” Once he realized he was in his own bed without Mindy to curl around and mess with, his mood darkened immediately.
     The whole of the last few weeks had been a blur, but a pleasant one. Until recently, when Jack had been getting a distinct sensation of rejection, of having to work too hard for Mindy’s attention. It was pissing him the fuck off. And setting off all sorts of alarm bells.
     “Get up, you ass.” Brandis’ voice was clear now. “Your room is a pigsty. Are you on drugs or something? Drugs you aren’t sharing? Because I’ve never seen you like this. Get up!” The pillow hit him again, making him grunt, sit, and glare at his oldest friend.
     For some reason, the serious look on the boy’s dark-skinned face made Jack want to burst into laughter at the utter absurdity of what he’d been doing —fucking himself into sweet oblivion. In every possible way, shape, and position with the woman who, at the same time, wanted to marry his father.
     He groaned and lay back, tugging the blanket up over his eyes, wishing the whole stinking mess away.
     “Come on, dickhead. Let’s go…. I need some hoops time, and I’m sick of your excuses.” Brandis stood to his full six-foot-three inches, glaring down at Jack.
     Jack blinked then put his feet on the floor, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to sort out why he was so god damned pissed off.  He was the same guy in the same body, albeit one that had come a long way since he’d walked into the office that day eager to go to a party and grope a girl.
     “All right.” He got up and stretched, relishing the way his sore muscles sang out and his body tingled all over. “Hold your water.” He made his way to the bathroom, took a piss after his morning hard-on receded, then wandered out naked. He grinned at Brandis who’d reached for Jack’s not-so-secret stash of Penthouse mags.
     Jack got dressed, then flopped back onto his bed and put an arm over his eyes. His head still pounded from lack of sleep and a strange sort of elusive stress he couldn’t pin down. Oh, right. Mindy. She of the teaching skills who had let him more or less live with her for nearly three months then told him last night he needed to “move on.” To “find some girls his own age and use his new skills on them.” This after he’d fucked her standing up, in the hallway, unable to even wait the short few steps to the bedroom.
     Jack ran a slightly shaking hand down his face. Truth was, he didn’t want any “girls his own age.” He wanted nothing more than to hole up with Mindy, eat the crappy Chinese takeout she loved, watch whatever she wanted on TV. Just be with her, content, totally at ease in his skin.
      Well, and fucking her a lot, like four or five times a day. He sighed as his cock stirred to life, then sat, needing to redirect his energy. Maybe Brandis was right. He needed to get out and use his body for something other than getting laid.
     “Let’s go before you have to spank your monkey all over my magazine.” Jack smacked the titty mag out of his friend’s hand and walked out of his room.
     “Are you calling me a monkey, you racist pig?” Brandis ran past him into the hall, hitting the door and tumbling out into the light of the early summer day, making Jack smile.
     “No. Just a poor, sex-starved loser. I couldn’t give a fuck less what color you are.”
     “Ha, you don’t know me very well, do you?” Brandis snapped, tossing Jack a basketball then climbing behind the wheel of his Shelby Charger. “Don’t get your loser germs on my leather seats.”
     Jack grinned, flipped his friend off, then licked his palm and wiped it, ostentatiously, across the steering wheel. “There. Some of my ‘hitting it with regularity’ mojo for ya.” 
     Brandis snorted. “You’re such a liar.”
     “Oh no, I’m not,” Jack said mildly, staring out the window and trying to come to terms with how lonely he felt at that moment.
     They screeched out onto the quiet street, stereo blaring, and parked at the high school where a couple of outdoor courts were already busy. Brandis kept his hands on the wheel a minute, staring out the windshield. Jack barely noticed, so sunk in his own stew of self-pity.
     “Where have you been?” he said quietly.
      Jack blinked then looked at his friend. “What do you…?”
     Brandis held up a hand. “Gordon, it’s not like I need you around me or anything but shit, dude, you are like…gone somewhere. You’ve missed the team workouts more than once. You never go out on the weekends. I mean…what is it?”

The Days of Dread
By Liz Crowe

As an author, I’m always living under some sort of deadline, be it self-imposed or publisher initiated.

There is the “first draft due” date, the “edits due back” warnings, the “find excerpt and blurbs” orders and of course, the “write me these blog posts yesterday” agenda items.  I’m the sort of personality that prefers to have hard and fast deadlines and I usually meet them. If projects are left loosey goosey on me I tend to ignore them in favor of more fun things. I hold those around me to deadlines too and there is very little in the world I despise more than a deadline agreed upon then missed, unless there is a legitimate excuse, like, “Sorry, Liz. I died.”

But that’s just me.

The other thing we get to appreciate as authors are the various “milestones,” of each publication along the way that go with these deadlines. The cover and blurb reveal is the first one. Then the release date itself unless you are like me and have an ARC reader weekend. Then there are the “reviews.” Ah….nothing quite like opening your email or your amazon or goodreads account and finding some new reader there, admiring your hard work. This stage is one that drags on a bit, but those first ones, especially as a newbie author, are sublime instances of perfect exhilaration…or monumental despair.

There is a lot of advice floating around out there about how to handle bad reviews. Ignore, react, engage, complain, cry, throw things, bitch to family, bitch online, excoriate the reviewer, stalk the reviewer…they are all considered options I guess. I have been around and have enough of a fan base and possess a known, sort of “mid level for an indie pubbed author” notoriety that I get everything from fan grrls to full on haters. And I am here to tell you, it is pretty easy for the person NOT being told how sh*tty they are to say “oh, you know what they say about opinions!”

“No,” I want to yell back. “Tell me about opinions, especially this one right here, on the internet, that says I need to go back to bagging groceries or whatever and quit pretending to be an author by a person who pretty obviously did not read my book but wants to reduce me to this sniveling, useless lump of no longer creative humanity that I am right now. Tell me about opinions!”

But instead, I smile, and repeat the mantra about opinions and a**holes with the person trying to make me feel better, then turn away to kick a hole in the wall, or consume enough alcohol for an entire fraternity house before getting over myself.

My point here (yes, I have one) is that I for one, have put a moratorium on my own reliance on other people’s a**holes….erm…opinions. Yeah, I want the big contract, the movie deal (actually I’d prefer the premium cable one but you get me). I want the string of letters after my name indicating my status an author who has arrived. But recently, when I tried to impose a writing ban on myself, just to see if what I suspected was true—that I enjoy writing too much to just stop because I’m pissy over reviews or a lack of NYT BSA on my book covers—it worked for about 24 hours.

So my new mantra, to go with the opinions/rectums one, is this: Write because you enjoy it. Make your work the best it can be by getting it edited or at least proofread, hope that one more person each day enjoys it. Then turn around and write another one.

Happy reading! Or Writing! Or blogging! 

About the author

Microbrewery owner, best-selling author, beer blogger and journalist, mom of three teenagers, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great Midwest, in a major college town. Years of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as an ex-pat trailing spouse, plus making her way in a world of men (i.e. the beer industry), has prepped her for life as a successful author. 

When she isn’t sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, she can be found writing, editing or implementing promotions for her latest publications.  Her groundbreaking literary fiction subgenre, “reality fiction,” has gained thousands of fans and followers who are interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”)

Her beer blog a2beerwench.com is nationally recognized for its insider yet outsider views on the craft beer industry. Her books are set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch and in high-powered real estate offices. Don’t ask her for anything “like” a Budweiser or risk painful injury.

For more information on Liz Crowe, please visit her website www.lizcrowe.com or www.brewingpassion.com (her author blog).  She enjoys interacting with her fans on her Facebook author page www.facebook.com/lizcroweauthor. Information for all of her books, including eBook and print formats (where available), can be found on her Amazon author page. 


www.lizcrowe.com
www.brewingpasssion.com
www.a2beerwench.com
www.facebook.com/lizcroweauthor
www.twitter.com/beerwencha2
www.facebook.com/groups/romanceforreallife
www.facebook.com/jackgordonrealtor  

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