Escape with Good Faith

A few months ago, I saw that Liz Crowe's Good Faith was a 99 cent download on Amazon. I snapped up that bargain! And I'm really glad I did.

Though I hadn't read any of the previous books in the Stewart Realty series, and Good Faith was my first read by Liz Crowe. Definitely not my last though. She bills her stories as "romance for real life" and this story, at least, hit a bullseye in that target. More than once I was struck with the sense of 'been there, done that' as far as marriage and raising kids.

But this story encompasses so much more than that. Good Faith follows the lives of parents and their children as they come of age. All face a myriad of challenges.

I admit I wished I had begun with the first in the Stewart Realty series, as the number of characters was hard to follow at first.

But Ms. Crowe is adept at reaching deep into each character's thoughts and heart, and revealing them thoroughly so that readers likewise get to know them thoroughly. Her characters are so well drawn out that you are intimately acquainted with their hopes, desires and dreams, as well as their flaws. There are no Pollyanna portrayals here. You might come to see them as people who possibly are neighbors or coworkers, maybe you recognize them in your own family. Like real people, they try their best but at times, stumble. For some characters, their conflicting desires clash, making life choices difficult.

Ms. Crowe wrote with such heart and tender care of these characters. Readers can't help but love them too. This is less a romance than a mainstream novel, fraught with heartbreak, loss - and redemption, my favorite kind of story.

Take the time to read and savor this novel. You will be glad you did.

About Liz Crowe

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 erotic romance author.
When she isn’t sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, she can be found writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications.
Her groundbreaking romance subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” 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.

Find out more about Liz on her site or her blog.

4-star review for The Bridge Between

I don’t regularly check for reviews, so this one surprised me when I came across it by accident on Amazon.

Joy H of Readers Favorite BookReviews and Award Contest rated my mainstream, The Bridge Between, four stars,and called it “a good romance.” One of the pitfalls of writing across genres, I guess, is that some readers may assume a work is another genre. It falls between mainstream and women's fiction, but my view is that labels are for publishers, not readers.

In any case, it was a very nice surprise, and I’m grateful to Joy for this review!

Reviewed by Joy H. for Readers Favorite:

The Bridge Between starts when Jessie Moore makes a trip to her hometown in New Jersey to attend the funeral of a longtime friend who died of AIDS. While at the funeral, she met up with several old friends, including her old boyfriend, Billy Black. Billy was her first love, and Jessie was glad to be spending time with him again. Unlike Jessie, Billy seemed to cover his worries and fears with excessive drinking, which only got worse by the time Jessie returned to her job as a newspaper photographer in Philadelphia. Jessie had left her hometown and moved to Philadelphia to follow her dream of being a photographer, but she wasn't really happy at her job now that she and co-worker Matt had split up. She was happy that she and Billy were keeping in touch after her return home.

As I read about Jessie and Billy, I was reminded of several relationships gone bad because of drinking. I appreciate the author approaching this issue in the book; however, to have Billy find help or even encouraged more to seek help for his problem would have made this a more enjoyable book to read. Instead, his drinking only made Jessie drink more. The characters and the plot were believable, but I wasn't expecting the turn of events near the ending of the story. However, I did want to see Jessie and Matt back together because Matt seemed more settled and mature, just as Jessie was.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good romance. Even though it's over 400 pages long, it is a pretty fast and easy read. one you will enjoy!

Thanks again Joy! I’m so glad you enjoyed The Bridge Between.