The Magnolia Sisters by Michelle Major – Review, Excerpt & Q&A
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Description:
An inheritance brought her to Magnolia, but love just might keep her there…
Avery Keller arrives in Magnolia, North Carolina, with one aim: collect her inheritance and quickly put the quirky town in her rearview mirror. But the father who didn’t acknowledge her when he was alive has left Avery a mess to sort through—along with two half sisters she’s never met and a gorgeous single dad living next door. Soon her plan to keep this colorful, close-knit community at a distance gets complicated….
Grayson Atwell has rescued plenty of people in his firefighting career. His work and his little girl, Violet, are his entire world and there’s no time for anything—or anyone—else. But the vulnerability beneath Avery’s prickly facade brings out a fiercely protective side of him. Despite her protests, Gray can see that Avery’s falling under Magnolia’s spell—just like he’s falling for her. Now the only question is: How can he convince her to give them both a chance at forever?
Review:
The Magnolia Sisters by Michelle Major is a wonderful small-town romance that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I expect this will be a series. Avery Keller, our heroine, arrives in Magnolia to claim an inheritance from a father she never knew. Avery is coming off of an emotional breakup with a boyfriend who she didn’t know was married, and upon arrival comes across as embittered and snarky. All she wants is her money and to leave and start a new life elsewhere.
Grayson (Gray) Atwell, our hero and a firefighter, meets Avery at the local coffee shop and finds her a bit nasty. Gray does find Avery attractive, despite her attitude, but he has no plans to become involved, as he has a young daughter, Violet, who is his number one priority.
Avery meets the other two women, who also share the inheritance, and who are her half- sisters (Carrie & Meredith) that neither of them knew anything about; but they all have one thing in common…their despair over the deceased father, who kept all those secrets. They both grew up in Magnolia, though never really friends. When Avery talks about selling, both of the girls do not want to sell, and will work on Avery to think about changing and fixing things in Magnola, as well as convince her to stay. I loved how in a short time, Avery began to become close to Carrie and Meredith, opening up her battered heart to having a family for the first time in her life. But convincing her to stay is a difficult proposition, especially when she finds herself falling hard for Gray, and in time his daughter.
What follows is a wonderful heartwarming story with both Carrie and Meredith becoming very close to Avery, and making such a great team. They also play a big part in helping Avery face the fact that she has fallen in love with Gray, which also included Violet. I loved how they all bonded to make sure that Avery knew her life belonged in Magnolia with all of them.
The Magnolia Sisters was written so very well by Michelle Major, with so many wonderful characters; Avery, Carrie, Meredith, Gray, Violet and many of the townsfolks. I look forward to the next book in this series, which I expect to be about Carrie. Cannot wait, as I loved everyone in Magnolia. I suggest you start with series by reading The Magnolia Sisters.
Reviewed by Barb
Copy provided by Publisher
The house was one of the oldest in Magnolia, with ten-foot ceilings even on the second floor. That fact gave the room an open feel, despite how crowded it was. But it wasn’t going to make it any easier to get Avery unstuck.
“Gray’s here,” Carrie called, and Gray saw the legs go tense.
“I’m fine.” Avery’s tone was exasperated but he could hear the thread of pain in it. “I don’t need help.”
“Where’s the attic?” he asked Carrie.
She backed out of the bedroom and pointed to an open doorway across from the main staircase. “I warned her not to go up there.”
“This isn’t the time for ‘I told you so,’” Avery shouted.
Carrie gave him a look and lowered her voice. “Get her out, Gray. She’s irritating as hell, but I can’t have her hurt in this mess of a house.”
“She’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “I’m going to try to make this work from above instead of below. I’ll need reinforcements if we’re going to move the furni¬ture. That’ll take too long.”
He climbed the steps, waving a hand in front of his face until the dust that filled the air cleared.
“You sure know how to make your mark on a place,” he said casually as he surveyed the scene.
“I don’t need your help,” she snapped. “Doesn’t Car¬rie have a helpful neighbor she could call?”
“She called me,” he answered simply. He kind of liked Avery Keller’s attitude and admired her calm in the situation, but right now he was all business. “Can you tell if the floor joists around you will hold my weight or are they too damaged?”
“The ones in front of me will give,” she answered. “I’m wedged in here tight and when I try to shift my weight to lift myself up, everything feels like it’s sag¬ging.”
“Then don’t move.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she muttered. “In case you care, I also have a piece of splintered wood lodged in my left arm. So I can only use the right one at the moment.”
His gut tightened at the thought of her in pain. “Do you think anything’s broken?” He stepped gingerly to¬ward her, making sure to test each section of floorboard before he moved. He couldn’t very well help her if he ended up in the same predicament.
“Bruised,” she admitted, “but not broken. Do you think Clark Griswold knew how lucky he was to land on that bunk bed?”
“That’s the Hollywood version of this scenario. This is real life.”
“Does that mean I’m not going to get a happy end¬ing?”
“You’re going to be fine,” he told her, placing his tool bag on the floor and pulling out a small saw.
“You must practice that commanding tone at the fire¬house.” She laughed softly. “It’s weirdly reassuring.”
“My job is rescuing people. I’m good at it.”
“Great.” For the first time since he’d encountered her at the convenience store, Avery sounded defeated.
It bothered him more than he cared to admit.
He began talking her through his plan, mostly mak¬ing it up as he went along. The floor joists behind her seemed to be structurally sound, but he wasn’t going to risk putting the weight of his entire two hundred pounds on them.
“Can you get her out?” Carrie called from below them. “I climbed over the mess in here and I’ve got pil¬lows to cushion a fall just in case.”
“I’m glad I didn’t wear a skirt today,” Avery said through clenched teeth.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he reassured her, earning a snort.
She shifted to look over her shoulder at him, and the floor around her heaved.
He heard Avery’s gasp, along with Carrie’s worried cry from the bedroom.
“Stay still,” he commanded, then called to Carrie, “Don’t stand directly underneath her.”
“I don’t want to fall,” Avery said, more to herself than to him.
He answered anyway. “You’re not going to fall.”
She drew in a ragged breath. “I might be starting to panic. I don’t usually panic.”
“No reason to.” He bent to his knees, then crawled forward, stretching out to reach her. The ideal way to handle this would be clearing out the spare bedroom and having some of his crew supporting her from below. But there was no guarantee that more of the floor wouldn’t give way while they waited for backup to arrive. Plus she was in pain, and he wanted her safe on solid ground as soon as he could manage it.
“I’m right behind you,” he said as he got closer. “I’m going to cut the piece of wood that’s got you wedged in here.”
“I feel like a chicken skewer.”
One side of his mouth curved, and he inched forward. Narrating his movements for her, he managed to saw through the splintering section of wood.
Avery let out a sigh when it fell away from her arm. She had a deep cut, but it wasn’t bleeding badly at the moment.
“Now I’m going to lift you back toward me. Use your elbows to brace on the joists on either side of you.”
“I can do three pull-ups in my CrossFit class,” she announced. “Who knew all my upper body strength would come in so handy?”
“Exactly,” he agreed, knowing it was fear driving her seemingly casual chatter. “Do you upend tires, too?”
“Sometimes. Mostly it’s a lot of burpees and suicides.”
“I hate burpees.” He positioned his hands under her arms. “You’re strong, Avery. You’ve done a great job holding steady. Just a few more seconds and…” He half lifted, half dragged her up out of the hole, quickly moving both of them away from the water-damaged section of the attic.
“You did it,” Carrie shouted from the bedroom below.
“You did it,” Avery echoed in a hoarse whisper.
“We did it,” he corrected. He had the crazy urge to wrap his arms around her and pull her close, holding her to him until the tremors he felt rippling through her body subsided. The notion was odd and out of character. He’d rescued plenty of people in his years as a firefighter.
Hell, just last week, he’d come to the aid of Kenneth Masminster when he’d locked himself in his tool shed. But a seventy-five-year-old gardener who smelled like menthol and mothballs hadn’t elicited near the emo¬tional reaction that Avery did. Avery, with her shiny hair and manicured nails, and the scent of expensive perfume on her skin that was at odds with the hot, dusty attic. A scent that should put him off. As appealing as it was, what the scent conveyed about the woman who wore it made her all wrong for him.
“Thank you,” she said into the front of his uniform shirt. She seemed as unwilling to let go as he was.
Michelle Major is the Publishers Weekly best-selling, RITA award winning author of over thirty sexy and sweet contemporary romances. She loves second-chances love stories, smart heroines and strong heroes. A Midwesterner at heart, she’s made the Rocky Mountains her home for nearly half her life and is thrilled to share her books with readers. Connect with her at www.michellemajor.com.
TRC: Hi, Michelle. Welcome to The Reading Café
Michelle: Thank you for having me. I’m so glad to be here.
TRC: We would like to start with some background information. Would you please tell us something about yourself?
Michelle: I grew up in Ohio but have lived in Colorado for over twenty-five years. No matter how long I’m here, I’ll always consider myself a Midwestern girl at heart. I write sweet and sexy contemporary romance and have published over thirty books. I’m so excited about the release of The Magnolia Sisters, which kicks off my first single title series with Harlequin.
TRC: What inspired you to become a writer?
Michelle: For over a decade I worked in Human Resources and traveled for my job. I had a crazy fear of flying and randomly picked up a romance novel in an airport bookstore (it was a Johanna Lindsey). I loved it so much and realized that the stories I told myself in my head were romance novel plots. That’s when I began to write. It took a lot of years (and getting my two kids through the toddler years) before I got published. It was worth the wait!
TRC: Can you please give us a brief description of The Magnolia Sisters?
Michelle: The Magnolia Sisters is a series that focuses on three women who discover they share the same father after he dies and how they manage to forge a bond in the small town of Magnolia, North Carolina. In the first book we meet Avery, a big city transplant who is starting over and definitely not looking for love (spoiler alert: she finds it with a sexy firefighter). I loved (as always) writing an emotionally charged romance but also having the opportunity to explore the relationship between the three sisters.
TRC: Based on the ending, I am hoping this is a series. How many books do you plan on writing for this series?
Michelle: Well, I’m so glad you feel that way and, yes, The Magnolia Sisters is currently planned as a three-book series. The second book will be Carrie’s story and the baby sister, Meredith, will be featured in book three. I’m mid-way through Meredith’s book now and still love writing in this world, so fingers crossed readers love it too. You might be seeing even more Magnolia books in the future.
TRC: What is your writing process? Do you like to write at specific times, in a special place? Do you plan your books in advance or let them develop as you write?
Michelle: I’m definitely of the Nora Roberts’ school of puking out the first draft—I plot the major points of the story and take lots of notes as I write the first draft. My normal production for a first draft is 10-15k words a week. Then I do a deep dive edit. When I’m drafting, I love editing. When I’m editing, I love the drafting process. I have an office connected to the house (it’s also the rec room area) but I always write on my laptop and I take it everywhere.
If you saw the layer of dust on my furniture or the sweeping piles of dog hair blowing down the hall, you’d know why I have time to write. I have learned to be fairly disciplined with my schedule, especially with multiple deadlines. Giving the time to my craft is most important to me. Practically, I set word count goals each week and I put my butt in the chair until I meet them.
TRC: Walk us through a day in the life of Michelle Major.
Michelle: Most of my days follow the same schedule (at least Monday – Friday). My husband leaves for work early (normally before 5:30) so I wake up then. I usually write in my journal or do a bit of stretching and plan the day. My high schoolers are then up and I like to be with them while they have breakfast and make lunches. They leave by 7:00 and the rest of the day (until 2) is spent writing, working on the business of being an author, procrastinating by doing laundry or other housework (no lie!). I love listening to podcasts and audiobooks, so I keep myself entertained that way. I normally make time for a dog walk as well and feel so blessed to live in Colorado near the mountains. Once my kids get home, I continue to work but it’s stop and start as they take priority in the afternoon and evening. Unless I’m on deadline, and then the deadline takes all the priorities. I’m a creature of habit so I usually have the same thing for breakfast and lunch most days. When the kids don’t have activities, we always eat as a family. That’s important to both my hubby and me.
TRC: Can you tell us about what’s coming up next for 2020 & 2021.
Michelle: I’m so excited about The Magnolia Sisters series. In addition to The Magnolia Sisters, the second book in the series, The Merriest Magnolia, will release in October. I also have three books in a new series, Welcome To Starlight, with Harlequin Special Edition so it’s an exciting year for me! 2021 will continue both series and hopefully even more books to come.
TRC: What are hobbies or interests do you have?
Michelle: I love doing anything outside—lots of hiking with my dogs. My kids are teenagers so much of my free time is spent on the sidelines of their activities. And we also foster kittens for a local animal rescue. Pretty much anything with fur, I’m in!
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Michelle: If you’re at all interested in writing, my best advice is “baby steps.” Even now—over 30 books written—sometimes I start the day setting my timer for 15 minutes. Just to start. I feel like I can do anything in small chunks. You can too! ☺
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