My favorite place in the world is Block Island, located twelve miles off the southern coast of Rhode Island. A tiny slip of land with a Great Salt Pond in the middle, Block Island is the place time forgot. You won’t find a stop light on the island or a hospital. Internet connections are sketchy at best, and good luck finding a hotel room in the summer if you haven’t planned months in advance. What you will find is peace and quiet and beaches and bluffs and quaint shops and a laidback atmosphere that soothes the soul.
The island has played an important role in my life from the time I was a small child arriving on my parents’ boat, through a college romance and now as a favorite family vacation spot each summer. I’ve never been anywhere that inspires me more. Block Island pops up often in my books, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before I made up my own version of the island and set a series there. Thus Gansett Island and the McCarthy Family were born. “Gansett” is a tip of the hat to Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, one of my favorite places to spend a summer day.
MAID FOR LOVE is the first book, FOOL FOR LOVE will come next June 1, 2011 and READY FOR LOVE will be out in July 1, 2011. Will there be a second trilogy featuring Grant, Adam and Evan McCarthy? That’s up to you, the readers, to let me know if you want more of the McCarthy Family.
I love to hear from readers! Contact me at marie@marieforce.com.
Welcome to Gansett Island! I so hope you enjoy Mac and Maddie’s story. Stay tuned at the end for a sneak peek at Joe and Janey’s story, Fool for Love.
xoxo
Marie
Here's a sneak peek at each book:
Maid for Love (May 1, 2011)The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 1
Maddie Chester is determined to leave her hometown of Gansett Island, a place that has brought her only bad memories and ugly rumors. Then she’s knocked off her bike on the way to her housekeeping job at McCarthy’s Resort Hotel by Gansett’s “favorite son,” Mac McCarthy. He’s back in town to help his father with preparations to sell the family resort and has no intention of staying long. When Mac accidentally sends Maddie flying over the handlebars, badly injuring her, he moves in to nurse her back to health and help care for her young son. He soon realizes his plans for a hit-and-run visit to the island are in serious jeopardy, and he just may be “maid” for love.
Read an excerpt from Maid for Love.
Fool for Love (June 1, 2011)The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 2
Joe Cantrell, owner of the Gansett Island Ferry Company, has been in love with Janey McCarthy for as long as he can remember. At the same time, Janey has been dating or engaged to doctor-in-training David Lawrence. When things go horribly wrong between David and Janey, she calls her “fifth brother” Joe, one of the few people in her close circle who lives on the mainland. Janey decides a few days with Joe is just what she needs before she goes home to the island to face her parents and family with the news of her broken engagement. It was bad enough for Joe loving Janey from afar, but having her in his house is pure torture. Will he take advantage of this opportunity to show her what they could have together? And what will Joe’s best friend and Janey’s protective older brother Mac have to say about it?
Ready for LoveThe McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 3
For four of the best summers of his young life, Luke Harris was in love with Sydney Donovan, a wealthy seasonal visitor to Gansett Island. Then Sydney went off to college and never came back. She married another man and had two children while Luke remained on the island, working at McCarthy's Gansett Marina and wondering what had gone wrong between him and the only woman he ever loved. Fifteen months after Sydney suffers the tragic loss of her husband and children, she's returned to Gansett to figure out what's next, and that may very well be a rekindled love affair with the one man from her past she’s never forgotten. But is she ready for a second chance at love?
I'll be posting excerpts from FOOL and READY as their launch dates draw closer.
These are my favorite kind of books to read and write, fun contemporaries that focus on a family with all its many facets, set in a place we'd all like to live (well, at least I would!) I so hope you enjoy reading them as much as I've enjoyed writing them.
