Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Maggie Mae Gallagher grew up listening to Cardinals baseball and reading anything she could get her hands on. She remembers her mother saying if only she would read the right type of books instead binging her way through the romance aisles at the bookstore, she’d have been a doctor. While Maggie never did get that doctorate, she graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri-St. Louis with an M.A. in History.
Maggie is a bestselling and award-winning author published in multiple fiction genres. She also writes erotic romance under the name Anya Summers. A total geek at her core, when she is not writing, she adores attending the latest comic con or spending time with her family. She currently lives in the Midwest with her two furry felines.
Learn more about Maggie at her website. Connect with her online at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, and BookBub.
by Maggie Mae Gallagher
Echo Springs - Book 1
Publisher: Blushing Books
Release Date: September 6, 2019
Abby Callier is more in love with Shakespearean heroes than any real man, and she’s beginning to wonder if there is life for her outside the pages of a book. It doesn’t help that her esteemed parents tend to view her as they would one of their science experiments gone wrong. On the eve of finishing her dissertation, she escapes her staid existence to live in the house she inherited from her Great Aunt Evie in the small town of Echo Springs, Colorado. Because, let’s face it, when a woman starts comparing her life to horror films, it might be time for a break.
Sheriff Nate Barnes believes in law and order and carefully building the life you want. In his spare time, he has been remodeling his house in the hope that one day it will be filled with the family he makes. But Nate doesn’t like drama or complications and tends to avoid them at all costs. And yet, when Miss Abigail Callier, his newest neighbor, beans him with a nine iron, he can’t help but wonder if she might just be the complication he’s been searching for all along. It doesn’t hurt that he’s discovered a journal hidden away by the previous tenant, and decides to use Old Man Turner’s advice to romance Abby into his life.
Abby never expected her next-door neighbor, the newly dubbed Sheriff Stud Muffin, to be just the distraction her world needed. The problem is she doesn’t know whether she should make Echo Springs her home, or if this town is just a stopover point in her life’s trajectory. And she doesn’t want to tell Nate that she might not be sticking around – even though she should, because it’s the right thing to do, the honest thing – because then all the scintillatingly hot kisses with the Sheriff will come to an abrupt halt. Did she mention that he’s a really great kisser?
The
Fixer Upper by Maggie Mae Gallagher
Exclusive
Excerpt for The Romance Dish
Abby
opened a bleary eye at the incessant knocking originating from the front door.
The clock on her nightstand declared it was just after eight in the morning. On
a Saturday, no less. When the knocking didn’t stop but increased in pace, she
slid out of bed with a grimace, grabbed her robe and put her glasses on as she
headed downstairs.
First
order of business for today, kill whoever was at the door. Second, make coffee.
Abby was not a fan of mornings. In fact, it was better just to leave her be
until she’d had, at the very minimum, one cup of coffee—two were better, three
were optimal. Did she have a problem where coffee was concerned? Probably. Did
she care? Not in the slightest.
Who
the hell was at her door at this hour? She was thinking maybe she should have
grabbed her nine-iron until she heard a deep rumbling woof. Rufus, which meant
it was Sheriff Stud Muffin banging on her door at this ungodly hour. It would be
bad form to kill the sheriff, wouldn’t it? Running a hand over her hair,
wishing like hell she had thought to run a brush through it, she unlocked and
opened the door. Rufus’ hulking form barreled in, prancing around her entryway
with his hello, I’m so excited to see you flair, while his owner stood in the
doorway with a bemused expression, sexy as sin in dark jeans and a button-up
royal blue flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to display his muscular
forearms. It should be a crime that he looked so fresh and alert, tackling the
early morning the way he appeared to do everything—with the utter assurance
that the world bent before him. Abby cringed internally because she knew, when
it came to mornings, she always looked like something the cat dragged in, and
bemoaned her haggard appearance. Especially considering a part of her brain
pushed past wakefulness into aroused as she stared at the way the flannel clung
to his broad shoulders and licked her lips. Who knew flannel could be sexy?
“Morning?”
Nate’s baritone voice resonated as if calibrated to the right dissonance and
frequency to spark every cell in her body to stand at attention.
“Morning,”
she croaked, her voice crackling from lack of moisture, making her sound more
like a frog than the well-put-together woman she wanted to appear to be. Who
the hell was she kidding? Part of the reason she was here, instead of hiring
someone to handle her aunt’s estate, was to get a handle on her life and decide
what she wanted. It was why she was dipping into her inheritance for the next
few months. She had to figure out the right direction, meaning deciding on the
university where she wanted to teach and potentially conduct research at after
graduation. Both were huge decisions in the scheme of her life, with
potentially cataclysmic ripple effects if she selected the wrong one. Perhaps
she’d been part of her parents’ world of academia for too long. And while there
was a part of her that didn’t want to choose, and would much rather burrow into
reality here, she couldn’t forget that this wasn’t home—this was a stopover.
He
quirked a lopsided grin in her direction and asked, “Did you forget our date?”
Abby’s
brain misfired completely. Date? They didn’t have a date, did they? “What date?”
Date?
When did Nate ask her on a date? She would have remembered that little detail.
Surely, she wouldn’t forget Sheriff Stud Muffin asking her out. Her brain
scrambled to recall their conversations, but it mingled with the romance novel
she’d indulged in last night as her body whimpered for coffee.
Nate
tilted his head to the side and gave her a perplexed stare. “Our firewood date,
remember? Or am I that easy to forget?”
Her
body simply went into overdrive at his flirting, with her ovaries doing a
victory dance and the distinct urge rising to satisfy her oral craving for
caffeine by latching her mouth onto various parts of his body. She stuttered,
actually stuttered, flames heating her cheeks which she was certain must be fire
engine red by now, and said, “N-n-n-no, I-I-I didn’t forget. Come on in while I
make some coffee.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PJ, here. One thing guaranteed to draw my attention to a book is a dog on the cover. Even better if the dog has a fun role in the story. In fact, I can't walk past a book with a dog on the cover without stopping for a closer look. And I can't walk past a big dog in real life without stopping for a cuddle.
What draws your attention to a book's cover?
Tell me about a dog (or other animal) who brings (or brought) joy to your life.
Two people who comment before 11:00 PM, September 12, will each receive a copy of The Fixer Upper. Many thanks to Maggie Mae Gallagher for the giveaway!
(U.S. only)
