Book Synopsis:
Free will makes us human.
Choice makes us individuals.
Love makes us unique.
Metin Sevim has it all. At the pinnacle of international soccer playing success, he has managed to craft a perfect world for himself along the way.
When fate strips him of free will and the ability to choose his own path, he retreats from everyone and everything, destroying his hard-won career in the process.
Dragged back from the brink by his desperate family, Metin reluctantly agrees to coach the Black Jack Gentlemen Detroit soccer team but remains debilitated by memories and loss. When a surprising friendship emerges, it renews his passion for life, providing much needed solace… and extreme complications.
A saga of family dynamics and gender politics that cuts across cultures and circumstance, Red Card illustrates the human capacity for forgiveness through the life of one man as he attempts to rebuild his shattered existence.
EXCERPT:
ENTER TO WIN!
Metin
studied the attractive woman sitting across from him at the huge kitchen
island. Musing that she probably would just as soon pour him a lovely glass of
cyanide as sit and drink red wine with him, he smiled, trying not to overreact
to her unsubtle hostility.
“So,”
she said, sipping and staring at him. “How is Graciella?”
He
forced an ever-wider smile. “Fine, I am assuming. She is on a photo shoot in
Italy for a month. I haven’t talked to her in…a while.” He lifted the glass to
his lips, not breaking eye contact.
Melanie
Matthews Miller could be a model herself. Something he was sure she’d heard plenty
of times. Her dark brown hair was thick, curly, barely contained by a headband.
Dark eyes shone in her angular, handsome face. He noticed that her hand shook
when she put her glass on the granite surface. Unable to resist, he reached for
it. She yanked it back as if he’d touched a lit match to her flesh. “Your
mother must have been a stunning woman.” He said, softly, as if to a cornered,
frightened animal.
“Yeah.
She was,” Mel polished off her first glass. Metin poured her some more. “Spare
me the lecture. I’m not an alcoholic.”
He
looked up, shocked. “I wouldn’t think of calling you that.”
“Sure
you would. I see it in your eyes.”
“The
only thing in my eyes right now is terror.”
She
scoffed, left the newly refilled glass on the counter and propped her chin on
her hands. The defeated slump of her shoulders made the natural caretaker in
him want to soothe. But he knew better than to comfort her, at least at that
moment. He took another drink of his wine, and the silence took on a life of
its own. Clearing his throat, he put his glass down, deciding if anyone could
take him being straightforward, it was this woman.
“I
love your sister,” he said.
Mel
just stared at him, her face betraying nothing. “No you don’t. You’re just a
collector of women. And Alicia is something new and exotic to you. Get over
yourself.” Her hard voice fit her. It was as if she had sharp edges he would
wound himself on if he were not careful. Her face was nearly perfect—high
cheekbones, large expressive eyes. In a different situation, she would be his
type. “I won’t let you hurt her, soccer boy. We clear on that?”
He
nodded, believing silence was the better part of valor at the moment. “Tell me
about him,” he finally said, unable to stop himself. “This man. Your… husband.
Who hurt you and made you into this….”
“Bitch?”
Her laughter hurt his ears.
“No,
that is not what—”
“Yes,
it was. It’s okay. I’m getting use to it now. Scott was the guy who swept me
off my feet, knocked me up, installed me in a house while he went to work at
the bank. I caught him fucking his secretary one day, right in that very house,
when I was supposed to be volunteering at Zach’s school.” She gripped her glass,
gazing into the middle distance. “I left. Came home to my father’s house with
my son. Told him we were through. And started going out, to clubs, bars… you
name it. I was a total slut. As I’m sure you will confirm, being the
traditionalist that you are. Men can stick their dicks in however many women
they want and they are super studs. I go out a few nights, let a few strange men
do that to me, and I’m a whore.”
He
gulped, forcing away that very reaction, reminding himself that this woman’s
life was absolutely none of his business. She glared at him, holding the stem
of her wine glass in a death grip. “And then, bam, I was pregnant again. And Scott
said he’d take me back, wanted me back, needed me back. Blah blah. Whatever.”
“Oh,
um, Tanner is not…”
“No,
Metin. I don’t know who Tanner’s father is. How about that for your traditional
principals? Shocked enough by me yet?” Her eyes darkened.
He
sat up straighter his ire rising at her seeming need to prove how bad she was
for some reason. “I don’t shock that easily.”
“Sure
you do.” She got up to pace. Her wild, curly hair kept escaping from the
headband and haloed her flushed face. In an instant, he saw what appeal she did
hold, when she was not being so bitter.
He
glanced around. The giant house was freezing, empty, positively cavernous. He
couldn’t fathom it. His family was huge, loud, and annoying, but that was a
whole hell of a lot better than this empty, echoing space filled with nothing
but unhappy people.
“Mom!”
An older boy stomped into the kitchen from the laundry room, slamming the
garage door behind him. “I thought you were… oh, hello there.”
Metin
stood and held out his hand. “Hi. I’m….”
“I
know who you are. My mom and aunt have been doing nothing but argue about you
lately.”
“Oh,
well.” Metin ran a hand through his hair, watching the boy’s body language
around his mother. “Sorry, I guess.”
“Nah,
it’s cool. They don’t need much excuse to fight.” He dropped his soccer bag to
the floor of the kitchen. Metin fought his inner neat freak. His mother never
tolerated his soccer kit anywhere but out in their garage. And a cuff to the
head was all it took for him to remember it. He and his three brothers had all
played, which made for a pretty smelly garage.
“Mom,
where’s dinner.”
“Order
out,” she said, her voice low and distant.
“Whatever,
I’m going out anyway.”
Metin
stared as they did their non-communication dance for a few more minutes then
got up before the urge to smack the smartass kid upside the head got too
strong.
“Sorry,
Metin.” Mel’s voice was soft. “We’re hardly the exemplary family. I have no
business being mad at you for judging us.”
“I
am not judging…. Oh, thank god,” he said when Alicia strode in, her gorgeous
face dusted with makeup, amazing curves draped in a silky black dress. “You are
beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
She blushed, which he loved. “You guys getting along okay? Zach, are you being
your usual teenager jerkish self?”
“Sure
thing, Auntie.” The kid grabbed a few cookies from the jar and walked out
without another word to his own mother.
Metin
shook his head.
“Okay,
stud. Let’s go to dinner. Or whatever.” She shot a worried glance at her sister,
but the other woman kept her back to them. By the time Metin realized Melanie shoulders
shook from crying, Alicia was pulling him out of the room.
Microbrewery owner, best-selling author, beer blogger and journalist, mom of three teenagers, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great Midwest, in a major college town. Years of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as an ex-pat trailing spouse, plus making her way in a world of men (i.e. the beer industry), has prepped her for life as erotic romance author.
When she isn’t sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, she can be found writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications.
Her groundbreaking romance subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” has gained thousands of fans and followers who are interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”)
Her beer blog a2beerwench.com is nationally recognized for its insider yet outsider views on the craft beer industry. Her books are set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch and in high-powered real estate offices. Don’t ask her for anything “like” a Budweiser or risk painful injury.
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