Book Club Discussion Questions for Carolina Home

1. There are four point of view characters in CAROLINA HOME: Matt, Allison, matriarch Tess, and ten-year-old Taylor. How did the Tess and Taylor’s viewpoints impact the story? Which character did you feel most emotionally connected to and why?

2. When Allison apologizes for her parents’ behavior at dinner, Matt excuses them. “They were being parents...[they] Want what’s best for you. And they know I’m not it.” What are Allison’s parents’ hopes and expectations for their children? How are they the same or different from Tom and Tess’s hopes for Matt, Meg, and Luke or Matt’s hopes for Josh?

3. How realistic did you find the small town, island setting? How did it add to the story?

4. There’s an eleven-year age difference between Matt and Allison. Did it bother you? Why or why not?

5. How does Tom’s example as a father influence Matt and Luke?

6. Matt left college to raise Josh. Do you agree or disagree with his decision? What do you think of his statement: "I worked damn hard to get where I am. To get what I need. That's enough for me"?

7. How did Matt’s interactions with Taylor affect your view of his character? What about his relationship with Josh? How does the presence of children affect the story?

8. Matt is a serial dater. Allison thinks she’d “had sex with other guys for less reason and certainly with less attraction.” They go to bed with each other pretty quickly. When does their relationship change? What do they offer each other besides sex?

9. Allison’s eagerness to experience life led her to try many different things. Do you she will be happy on Dare Island? Why or why not?

10. Matt remembers “watching his parents get ready to leave for some function on the base, his dad, tall and formal in his dress blues, his mom, unfamiliar in a dress that glittered and clung. The look of pride on his father’s face, the secret shining in his mother’s eyes. The same look they wore now, as if they were the only two people in the room, in the world. Matt had felt, well, weird seeing them that way for the first time, two grown-ups, two strangers, two characters in a story, as if he and his sister and brother were only spectators, minor participants in their parents’ fairy tale.” Why do you think the author chose to focus some scenes on Tom and Tess’s relationship? Did it add or subtract from your interest and enjoyment of the primary romance?

Teaser Tuesday!

Meg stole a glance at Sam’s profile as they left the bobbing lights of the waterfront behind. He looked good in moonlight, strong cheekbones, straight nose, sculpted lips, chiseled chin. And then there were those not-quite- dimples, the promise of humor, the flashes of empathy. Any woman could be forgiven for losing her head a little over Sam.

It wasn’t just his good looks and his money and his charm. Okay, those things didn’t hurt. But the real appeal was his willingness to put himself out, the way he’d driven to the airport to pick her up or built that ramp for her mother, without looking for payback, without figuring the angles or calculating the cost. She liked that about him. She liked him a lot.

He had always been a friend of Matt’s, a friend of the family. There was no reason after all these years that Meg couldn’t count him as her friend, too. Her good, close friend.

But nothing more.

The clouds against the blue velvet sky were the colors of an oyster shell, purple, gray, and milky white. The last time she had been alone in the dark with Sam, he’d kissed her senseless. If he tried anything this time, she was ready. She would just say no.

But despite his words in the restaurant, he was being a perfect gentleman.

She shivered a little from the breeze and disappointment.

He slanted a look at her. “Cold?”

She wasn’t stupid. She recognized a line when she heard one. “Is this where you offer to put your arm around me to keep me warm?”

“No.” He slid out of his jacket. “This is where I give you my jacket to keep you warm.” He put it around her shoulders, smiling down at her, making her feel safe and warm and cared for. His jacket smelled like him, masculine with a hint of expensive soap. “Then I put my arm around you,” he said, suiting the action to the words.

Meg smothered a laugh. “Where did you learn this move, high school?”

He grinned back, not smug, just...Sam. “Why not stick with what works?”

from Carolina Girl, coming June 2013

Teaser Tuesday!

Wow, the Labor Day weekend went fast!

Here's a little something to sweeten the start of the work week.

* * *

"How long have you been renting from my mother?” Rachel asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the kitchen.

“Not long,” Sean said easily.

She jingled her keys, hurrying to keep pace with his long stride. “I t’s going to be awkward, negotiating two cars in the driveway.”

“I can live with it.”

“And there’s the problem of space. Bedrooms...”

“Hey, I’m willing to share.”

She dipped her head, letting her hair swing forward to hide her smile. “Very generous of you,” she said dryly. “But it may be...” She swallowed. Go on. Say it. “Maybe now that we’re here, it just won’t work out.”

He stopped, giving her a long, slow once-over from surprisingly shrewd brown eyes. “Maybe. You might want to take that up with your mom. She doesn’t like living alone.”

“She won’t be alone. She has her grandchildren now. She has me.”

“Like I said, you should take that up with her.” Plucking the keys from her hand, he opened the rental truck’s door. His gentlemanly gesture confused her. Put her at a disadvantage. But short of wrestling for the keys, there was nothing she could do.

He handed them back. “Look, I’m not getting in the middle of some family thing. I’ve got family enough of my own. As far as I’m concerned, your mom is just a nice lady with an empty garage.”

“And a cozy house.”

That long-boned, laid-back body tensed. “The garage isn’t livable yet. I only agreed to stay in the house because your mother said it made her feel safe. But I’m not dogging for anybody to feed me or mother me or keep track of my comings and goings, and I’m sure not looking for hassles.” He took a quick, annoyed breath. “Clear?”

“Yes,” said Rachel, a bit breathless herself at his unexpected vehemence. Could she believe him? “Thank you, that’s very clear.”

“Good.” He waited until she climbed up into the cab and then closed the driver’s side door. “You two talk it over. I’m taking delivery on a new table saw, and I’d kind of like to know where to put it.” His wicked grin glimmered. “Don’t go jumping in with suggestions, now, beautiful.”

Her laugh sputtered, surprising them both. His smile broadened. Softened. Got personal.

“That’s right,” he said, though what he was agreeing to or approving of Rachel couldn’t have said.

Ambling forward a few steps, he stooped to grasp the steel T-handle of the garage door. Rachel watched the muscles flex beneath his shirt, and then the old door screeched and lifted, revealing his truck. His bright, new, shiny truck. Red, with Massachusetts plates and a bumper sticker that read, Women Love Me, Fish Fear Me.

She shot him a look, trying not to smile.

He grinned. “A present from my sister-in-law. She has a weird sense of humor.”

The words popped out before she could censor them. “She must, if your brother’s anything like you.”

He laughed. “Nah. My brothers are both respectable now.”

He climbed into his candy-apple-red truck. Rachel concentrated on negotiating her rental vehicle backward along the gravel, as cautious and awkward as a pregnant woman on roller skates. She felt the soft bump as her rear tire ran on grass and then the firm, flat road.

Sean MacNeill gunned his motor. His galvanized, oversize toolbox gleamed as he reversed toward her at twice her speed and cut smoothly onto the road.

Rachel sighed. She had too much at stake here to risk an attraction to some twenty-something carpenter in tight jeans and a kick-ass truck.

Whatever his motives, Sean MacNeill was a complication she didn’t need and a distraction she couldn’t afford.

Whatever her mother said, he would have to go.

From THE TEMPTATION OF SEAN MACNEILL

Now available on Kindle

and Nook

Teaser Tuesday! The Temptation of Sean MacNeill

Now available on Nook!

There was a strange man in Rachel’s bedroom, in Rachel’s bed. A naked man, she guessed, by the hard curve of shoulder that showed in the light from the hall. A strange, naked man.

Her mother must be thrilled.

Rachel wasn’t. Not at 2:00 a.m. Not after driving half the night with her two children sleeping in the back seat of a rental truck. Desperation and caffeine were the only things keeping her going. At this moment a naked Brad Pitt couldn’t have thrilled her.

Heart sinking, she regarded the long, well-muscled body tenting the flowered sheets. What on earth was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t put her kids to bed in that firetrap of a spare bedroom. She couldn’t even see the room’s twin beds beneath the piled cartons. A hotel room—even if she were willing to drag the children another half hour down the road, which she was not—was beyond her means. And waking her mother... No, she couldn’t cope with her mother right now.

Bad enough that the break-in had forced her home. She certainly wasn’t explaining it to her mother in the middle of the night, as if she were some teenager caught sneaking in after curfew.

The only solution, the only practical, adult solution, was to rouse this naked stranger and oust him from the only available bed. Any minute now an accusing Lindsey and a sleepy-eyed Chris would come stumbling up the stairs, and she needed a place to put them.

She cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t stir.

She took a cautious step forward. “Hello?”

The stranger shifted onto his back, revealing a threequarter profile that could have made Penelope abandon her weaving or Juliet forget poor Romeo. A muscled chest, its nudity emphasized by a perfect pattern of dark hair, stretched above the sheet. A small gold hoop like a pirate’s winked from his exposed earlobe.

He was young, she noted. Her stomach sank to join her heart in her neatly tied running shoes. Young, unshaven and outrageously good-looking. Oh, help. What was her mother thinking?

She pressed her lips together, light-headed from hunger and trembling with fatigue. After Carmine Bilotti’s threats, she should be able to take one half naked stranger in stride.

She opened the door wider, hoping the light from the hall might wake him. It sliced through the room and fell across the pillow.

The man in her bed opened his eyes. His dark gaze jolted her heartbeat. And then a slow smile curved his wide mouth and he dropped his head back onto the pillow. “Sweet Mother in Heaven, please don’t let me be dreaming.” He raised his hand, stopping Rachel’s interruption before she could get properly started. “Or if this is a dream,” he continued, “then don’t let me wake up. Amen.”

New Cover!

For The Temptation of Sean MacNeill, coming soon on Nook and Kindle!

Teaser Tuesday!

“What do you think you’re doing?” Allison hissed.

Matt glanced back down at her, his lids heavy. A corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “Kissing you. I’ve wanted to since you got here.”

Another dark thrill chased through her. “Your whole family is downstairs."

“Well, that’s why I waited,” Matt said reasonably.

She bit back a smile. “What will they think? Your mother. Josh.”

“My mother will think we’re involved. Which is why you came, remember? And Josh already knows.”

It was hard to remember anything with her blood still pumping, her head still spinning from his kiss. She pressed her lips together. She could still taste him on her mouth. “If you invited me to save my reputation, you’d better get downstairs.”

“I didn’t . . .” Matt stopped.

Her heart drummed in her chest. She held her breath in anticipation. “You didn’t . . . what?”

“Nothing.” He smiled again crookedly. He glanced down at his wet shirt front and then at the bed. “Need help changing?”

From CAROLINA HOME

Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Teaser Tuesday!

"What do you want, Dixie?" Conn asked.

Opening her eyes, Val looked at him, relaxed and confident, as if all he had to do was stretch back on the picnic blanket and smile that slow, collected smile and women would crawl all over themselves to get to him.

She sighed. Probably most women would.

“I want my independence. I want my restaurant to succeed. And even if I’m not the status symbol they want me to be, I’m trying very hard to reconcile with my parents right now.” She shook her head, making her earrings jangle. “Though it’s tough building a mature relationship with a man who calls you ‘punkin.’”

“I can imagine,” Conn said dryly.

His blue eyes were bright with humor and dark with understanding. She felt his regard deep in her midsection, sweet as raspberry trifle and comforting as bread. A woman could learn to depend on the sustenance of that warm regard. Briefly, Val hungered for...what? His support? Approval? Love?

No.

“What I don’t need,” she continued, “is a...a boyfriend looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do.”

“Or a lover?”

His deep, rough voice plucked at her nerves, making her insides quiver. “I tried that. I’m not some little innocent, you know. It didn’t work. It wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Expectations. You let somebody into your bed, and all of a sudden he wants the keys to your apartment and a chance to run your life.”

“Your life? Or your business?”

“Either one.” Bravely, she met his eyes. “I won’t give up control, MacNeill.”

His thumb rubbed his jaw. “You know, it’s possible you’re letting your prejudices blind you to a good thing. You’re stuck with me, anyway. Why not use me? I’ve got expertise and I’ve got experience. Hell, I can get you references if you want.”

Her cheeks scorched. “Are we still talking about the restaurant here?”

He went very still. His stillness was an active quality, as unmistakable and expressive as another man’s shout. And then his slow grin sizzled clear down to her toes. “I was. But feel free to take advantage of any services you want. I won’t be in town forever.”

From The Comeback of Conn MacNeill

Now available for Nook and Kindle