"Love on a Limb" by Laurie Lewis

Matt Grayken has wealthy parents and his own highly successful personal travel business. He’s a handsome man, respected by his employees, and loved by his parents. But Matt has a problem; he has leukemia. He had it as a young child and a recurrence some years before as a young adult. And now it’s back. 

What he doesn’t want is his health to be overseen by his parents. He loves them, but they managed his previous recurrence, and it nearly killed him. He needs someone to be in charge, and he develops a plan to marry for health reasons. And the woman he chooses in Mikaela Compton, a nurse specializing in oncology. They haven’t met, but he’s overheard her comforting other patients. And knowing little else about her, Matt has fallen in love with her.

 

He arranges a meeting and explains his plan. Almost like a business contract, the marriage would be geared to managing his health, because Matt doesn’t expect to survive this round of leukemia. Mikaela accepts his offer, not knowing he’s in love with her. Before too much time passes, Mikaela finds herself falling in love with Matt. But there are problems looking – his friends, his parents, and the overall hopelessness of his situation. Matt was adopted from Ireland, and no one’s been able to learn what family he might have come from to arrange a possible bone marrow transplant.

 

Laurie Lewis

Love on a Limb by Laurie Lewis is Matt and Mikaela’s story. The premise may strain credibility at first, but the story delivers. It’s a compelling tale with well-researched medical issues and two main characters who are drawn true-to-life. And, as might be expected from a story involving love and life-threatening illness, it’s a tear-jerker. 

 

Lewis writes historical fiction as L.C. Lewis, romance and women's fiction as Laurie Lewis, and general fiction as Laurie L.C. Lewis. She’s published some 12 novels. Love on a Limb is the first of the Great Expectations Love Stories: The Graykens series: the sequel is Love on the Line.

 

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The Dragons of Alsace Farm by Laurie Lewis.

“The Dragons of Alsace Farm” by Laurie Lewis

Noah Carter lives a quiet, rather confined life in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He lives in the utility room of a laundromat. He works in construction and repairs the machines at the laundromat. He seems to have few friends and no relatives. One day, a police officer comes to the laundromat and hands Noah a message. And it means that Noah will have to return home to the memories of an abusive family and a much-loved uncle – the uncle who betrayed him.

Agnes Keller was born and raised in France and came as a child to the United States after World War II. She’s now aging and afflicted with an increasing dementia. Her once-beautiful farm, named Alsace Farm after her childhood region, is overgrown and falling apart. And it seems to Agnes that the farm is a metaphor for her life.

Tayte Donnelly is Agnes’s granddaughter. She’s returning to Alsace Farm with the memories of what it was like when she was a child – the only really good place she knew. Her ne’er-do-well parents have long ago abandoned her, but Tayte is tough and used to getting along on her own.

Noah, Agnes, and Tayte will come together, clashing and fighting their way to love and understanding. Each brings considerable baggage. Noah has the pain of a fleeting marriage annulled by force and thrown into jail because he was betrayed by his uncle. Agnes and her father brought secrets with them from France – a whole attic full of secrets. And Tayte, hurt so profoundly by her parents, doesn’t want to let anything or anyone penetrate her tough exterior.

Laurie Lewis

The Dragons of Alsace Farm by Laurie Lewis is a big, rather complex novel, with three narrative lines (and character histories) and numerous sub-plots. Lewis manages to tie it all together in one understandable and often heartrending story.

Lewis writes historical fiction as L.C. Lewis, romance and women's fiction as Laurie Lewis, and general fiction as Laurie L.C. Lewis. She’s published some 10 novels.

The Dragons of Alsace Farm is a story about how the past can haunt and control our lives, and what it takes to break the hold the past has on us. 

Top photograph by Raz Bradley via Unsplash. Used with permission.