Title: Red Card (Black
Jack Gentlemen #2)
Genre: General Fiction, Adult
Publication Date: August 14, 2013
Cover Design: Mina Carter
Publisher: Tri Destiny Publishing
Event organized by: Literati Author
Services
Synopsis:
Choice makes us individuals.
Choice makes us individuals.
Love makes us unique.
Metin Sevim has it all. At the pinnacle of
international soccer playing success, he has managed to craft a perfect world
for himself along the way.
When fate strips him of free will and the ability
to choose his own path, he retreats from everyone and everything, destroying
his hard-won career in the process.
Dragged back from the brink by his desperate
family, Metin reluctantly agrees to coach the Black Jack Gentlemen Detroit
soccer team but remains debilitated by memories and loss. When a surprising
friendship emerges, it renews his passion for life, providing much needed
solace… and extreme complications.
A saga of family dynamics and gender politics that
cuts across cultures and circumstance, Red Card illustrates the human capacity
for forgiveness through the life of one man as he attempts to rebuild his
shattered existence.
The Black Jack Gentlemen
The newest series by Liz Crowe
Book 1:
Man On (August 2013)
Book 2:
Red Card (August 2013)
Book 3:
Shut Out (September 2013)
And Coming Soon…
Book 4:
Set Piece
Book 5:
Hat Trick
Red Card Excerpt
Metin studied the attractive woman
sitting across from him at the huge kitchen island. Musing that she probably
would just as soon pour him a lovely glass of cyanide as sit and drink red wine
with him, he smiled, trying not to overreact to her unsubtle hostility.
“So,” she said, sipping and staring at
him. “How is Graciella?”
He forced an ever-wider smile. “Fine, I
am assuming. She is on a photo shoot in Italy for a month. I haven’t talked to
her in…a while.” He lifted the glass to his lips, not breaking eye contact.
Melanie Matthews Miller could be a
model herself. Something he was sure she’d heard plenty of times. Her dark
brown hair was thick, curly, barely contained by a headband. Dark eyes shone in
her angular, handsome face. He noticed that her hand shook when she put her
glass on the granite surface. Unable to resist, he reached for it. She yanked
it back as if he’d touched a lit match to her flesh. “Your mother must have
been a stunning woman.” He said, softly, as if to a cornered, frightened
animal.
“Yeah. She was,” Mel polished off her
first glass. Metin poured her some more. “Spare me the lecture. I’m not an
alcoholic.”
He looked up, shocked. “I wouldn’t
think of calling you that.”
“Sure you would. I see it in your
eyes.”
“The only thing in my eyes right now is
terror.”
She scoffed, left the newly refilled
glass on the counter and propped her chin on her hands. The defeated slump of
her shoulders made the natural caretaker in him want to soothe. But he knew
better than to comfort her, at least at that moment. He took another drink of
his wine, and the silence took on a life of its own. Clearing his throat, he put
his glass down, deciding if anyone could take him being straightforward, it was
this woman.
“I love your sister,” he said.
Mel just stared at him, her face
betraying nothing. “No you don’t. You’re just a collector of women. And Alicia
is something new and exotic to you. Get over yourself.” Her hard voice fit her.
It was as if she had sharp edges he would wound himself on if he were not
careful. Her face was nearly perfect—high cheekbones, large expressive eyes. In
a different situation, she would be his type. “I won’t let you hurt her, soccer
boy. We clear on that?”
He nodded, believing silence was the
better part of valor at the moment. “Tell me about him,” he finally said,
unable to stop himself. “This man. Your… husband. Who hurt you and made you
into this….”
“Bitch?” Her laughter hurt his ears.
“No, that is not what—”
“Yes, it was. It’s okay. I’m getting use
to it now. Scott was the guy who swept me off my feet, knocked me up, installed
me in a house while he went to work at the bank. I caught him fucking his
secretary one day, right in that very house, when I was supposed to be
volunteering at Zach’s school.” She gripped her glass, gazing into the middle
distance. “I left. Came home to my father’s house with my son. Told him we were
through. And started going out, to clubs, bars… you name it. I was a total
slut. As I’m sure you will confirm, being the traditionalist that you are. Men
can stick their dicks in however many women they want and they are super studs.
I go out a few nights, let a few strange men do that to me, and I’m a whore.”
He gulped, forcing away that very
reaction, reminding himself that this woman’s life was absolutely none of his
business. She glared at him, holding the stem of her wine glass in a death
grip. “And then, bam, I was pregnant again. And Scott said he’d take me back,
wanted me back, needed me back. Blah blah. Whatever.”
“Oh, um, Tanner is not…”
“No, Metin. I don’t know who Tanner’s
father is. How about that for your traditional principals? Shocked enough by me
yet?” Her eyes darkened.
He sat up straighter his ire rising at
her seeming need to prove how bad she was for some reason. “I don’t shock that
easily.”
“Sure you do.” She got up to pace. Her
wild, curly hair kept escaping from the headband and haloed her flushed face. In
an instant, he saw what appeal she did hold, when she was not being so bitter.
He glanced around. The giant house was
freezing, empty, positively cavernous. He couldn’t fathom it. His family was
huge, loud, and annoying, but that was a whole hell of a lot better than this
empty, echoing space filled with nothing but unhappy people.
“Mom!” An older boy stomped into the
kitchen from the laundry room, slamming the garage door behind him. “I thought
you were… oh, hello there.”
Metin stood and held out his hand. “Hi.
I’m….”
“I know who you are. My mom and aunt
have been doing nothing but argue about you lately.”
“Oh, well.” Metin ran a hand through
his hair, watching the boy’s body language around his mother. “Sorry, I guess.”
“Nah, it’s cool. They don’t need much
excuse to fight.” He dropped his soccer bag to the floor of the kitchen. Metin
fought his inner neat freak. His mother never tolerated his soccer kit anywhere
but out in their garage. And a cuff to the head was all it took for him to
remember it. He and his three brothers had all played, which made for a pretty
smelly garage.
“Mom, where’s dinner.”
“Order out,” she said, her voice low
and distant.
“Whatever, I’m going out anyway.”
Metin stared as they did their
non-communication dance for a few more minutes then got up before the urge to
smack the smartass kid upside the head got too strong.
“Sorry, Metin.” Mel’s voice was soft.
“We’re hardly the exemplary family. I have no business being mad at you for
judging us.”
“I am not judging…. Oh, thank god,” he
said when Alicia strode in, her gorgeous face dusted with makeup, amazing curves
draped in a silky black dress. “You are beautiful.”
“Thanks.” She blushed, which he loved.
“You guys getting along okay? Zach, are you being your usual teenager jerkish
self?”
“Sure thing, Auntie.” The kid grabbed a
few cookies from the jar and walked out without another word to his own mother.
Metin shook his head.
“Okay, stud. Let’s go to dinner. Or
whatever.” She shot a worried glance at her sister, but the other woman kept
her back to them. By the time Metin realized Melanie shoulders shook from crying,
Alicia was pulling him out of the room.
The Romance of Soccer
Liz Crowe
In Europe (And in South America and Africa as well) “soccer”
is the primary sport played—from streets and sidewalks, to back yards and
professional fields. Hands down it is the most popular sport despite the
popularity of baseball in Central America, and rugby or cricket in the United
Kingdom.
It’s a simple concept and takes minimal equipment. In sort
of the same way that “basketball” was invented as a response to the expensive
sport of “American football” in Indiana and Kentucky which, for the most part,
did not have schools with the resources to field a football team, soccer’s rise
in popularity early in poorer countries makes sense. You need a ball (and I
have seen “balls” made of everything from leather to duct tape so essentially
you need a “round sphere to kick around that will roll”). And something to kick
it over (a line in sand, or a stick) or into (a bucket, a trash bin, or just
pre-designated space). You can play alone and work on your “juggling” (the
process of keeping the ball aloft using your feet and knees only) or your goal
scoring, or you can play with 2 people. And of course you can play just about
any “small sided” or “full sided” game. The pro game is played with 11 players
on each team, including a goal keeper.
The rise of soccer players as super celebrities in some
countries also makes sense. These guys are, for the most part, attractive,
competitive, outgoing and in many cases as rich as any super NBA or NFL Star in
the States. Since there are no NBA, NFL, MLB or hockey stars to fawn over,
soccer stars fill the gap nicely for folks looking to latch onto someone who
has worked very very (very) hard to achieve the sort of status enjoyed by
players like Christiano Renaldo, Gerard Pique, Wayne Rooney, Clint Dempsey and
many others. The popularity of fan sites like “kickette.com” and others do
their part to show soccer playing men as the ultimate romance heroes.
Their “WAGs” (wives and girlfriends) are always big news
too—most of them are (like they are in the states) models or actresses or
socialites of some sort or another.
In my new book RED CARD, Metin Sevim is a Turkish man who
ends up skipping college in favor of being recruited to play at the highest
levels in the Spanish National League (some would argue the second best in the
world after the English Premier League—I argue that it is even better). He has
it all—loads of money, women at his beck and call, he has his own girlfriend he
has decided to make a wife for lack of anything better because he wants kids.
But after a falling out with his team in Madrid he shocks his agent by signing
on for an exhibition tour of America playing in some major cities to bring some
of the Eruo-glamor to a sport that is just gaining a toehold in American sport
hearts and minds.
And everything change for him when he meets Alicia Matthews,
an all-American soccer star in her own right, but by the nature of her gender,
not able to advance to the level of his play. Which she very much resents.
The Black Jack Gentlemen soccer team of Detroit is a work of
fiction but I present an organization dedicated to making
“romantic heroes” out of all of their players, similar to their European and
South American counterparts. Metin Sevim is a tragic hero when he agrees to
coach the fledgling team. And the epitome of all the club hopes to bring to
their city with their new soccer project: glamor, raw athletic ability, and a
tinge of romantic mystery.
About the Author
Microbrewery owner, best-selling author,
beer blogger and journalist, mom of three, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the
great Midwest, in a major college town. She has decades of experience in sales
and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat
trailing spouse. While working as a successful Realtor, Liz made the leap into
writing novels about the same time she agreed to take on marketing and sales for
the Wolverine State Brewing Company.
Most days find her sweating inventory and sales figures for
the brewery, unless she’s writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for
her latest publications.
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 many 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.
If you are in the Ann Arbor area, be sure and stop into the
Wolverine State Brewing Co. Tap Room—but don’t ask her for anything “like” a
Bud Light, or risk serious injury.
Purchase Red Card NOW!
Also Purchase Book One, Man On!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Book Tour Hosted By
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