Welcome to Fallen Soldier by Liz Flaherty

Duane and I drove across a specific bridge a few years back. I don't remember where it was or when it was. But I remember the green sign that declared the span to be "Fallen Soldier Bridge." I wrote it down. If I'd put it in notes on my phone, I'd have the date and time, but I didn't. I just wrote it down and stuck it somewhere. 

I don't know where that note went, either, but the name stayed in my mind and became a small town in the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania. Although the first book in the series has been edited, rewritten, scrapped, unscrapped...you name it, one thing has remained the same. The sign at the edge of town says Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania Est. 1789 Pop. 2922. 

It wasn't always called that. It was originally called Cooper, like the lake that nudges up to it, but soldiers kept coming there, especially after the battle of Gettysburg, to heal or to die, and the name gradually changed. All this time later, veterans and others seeking peace in their souls still come to Fallen Soldier for the same reasons. Many of them are buried in the cemetery at the Little Church in the Woods. Some of them, like Scott at Have A Cup, settled and built their lives there. 

Clay McAlister's another one of those. Suffering the effects of both a fast-paced lifestyle as a TV journalist and a heart attack his friend the cardiologist labeled a widow maker far more cheerfully than he thought she should have, he followed his brother Jake to the small mountain town, bought the local newspaper, and settled into a house on the lake.

In Peru, Indiana, a year after her husband's death after a long battle with ALS, Syd Cavanaugh packed her new red SUV and started off on the road trip that was at the top of the list of things she was going to do in this, her year of firsts. 

The Wranglers' theme for February is love. This book is an act of that. While I love romance, I personally want to read and write romance among people whose thinking and longings I can identify with. While I love inspirational fiction, I want to say damn if the necessity arrives. I want wine while sitting on the porch, beer in the fridge, and occasional inappropriate behavior. In other words, the love in A Year of Firsts comes with warts and all. 

A Year of Firsts, released by Magnolia Blossom Printing as Book One in the Second Chances series, is available on Amazon. The print version will follow later. I hope you'll join me in Fallen Soldier and that you'll enjoy Syd and Clay's story.

Widow Syd Cavanaugh is beginning a “year of firsts” with the road trip she’d promised her husband she’d take after his death. An unplanned detour lands her in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, where she meets the interesting and intelligent editor of the local paper.

Television journalist Clay McAlister’s life took an unexpected turn when a heart attack forced him to give up his hectic lifestyle. He’s still learning how to live in a small town when meeting a pretty traveler in the local coffee shop suddenly makes it all much more interesting.

While neither of them is interested in a romantic relationship, their serious case of being “in like” seems to push them that way. However, Clay’s heart condition doesn’t harbinger a very secure future, and Syd’s already lost one man she loved to a devastating illness—she isn’t about to lose another. Where can this relationship possibly go?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09S2GRWZN/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0