BooksChatter: ☀ Bygones - Lisa K. Nielsen

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Bygones, a Romantic Suspense Novel by Lisa K. Nielsen (5 May 2016, Camel Press, 290 pages).

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first two chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Lisa K. Nielsen will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀).

Synopsis | Teaser | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Dr. Alexandra Hadley would prefer to leave small town life behind forever, but her father’s death forces her hand. In his will, he has left her his medical practice and Georgian-style mansion, and it is up to her to hire a new doctor and settle his estate.

Fresh out of medical school, Lexi is happily settled in Chicago, doing research in tandem with her boyfriend. Brian, fifteen years older with impressive credentials and sophisticated tastes, has no interest in visiting her birthplace of Glenmore, Illinois.

Lexi soon discovers that home has its attractions, the first being the handsome contractor Joe Manning, her secret crush in high school. Seeing patients is also surprisingly satisfying.

When Joe offers to remodel her father’s den, Lexi jumps at the chance to erase sad memories and become better acquainted with her gorgeous handyman. Even as the charms of Glenmore draw her in, a series of break-ins at her father’s house make her fear for her safety. Is the intruder searching for something other than valuables? And how determined is the culprit?

Lexi finds her fragile happiness at risk, including her newfound love for Joe Manning.

Teaser: Excerpt

Chapter One

     “Mother? Who’s that guy over there?” Lexi Hadley subtly jerked her head in the direction of a tall, dark, smoldering man trying to hold a delicate china coffee cup with ridiculously large fingers.
     “Which one, honey?”
     “The one talking to Caroline.” Like many of the others in attendance, the man looked familiar. But she couldn’t put a name to his face, either.
     “Oh, you know him.” Georgette Hadley Mills laid a hand on her daughter’s forearm. “That’s the Manning boy.”
     Lexi raised a brow and studied the man, remembering the boy she knew in high school. She was stunned. “Joe Manning? It can’t be. That man is … is ….”
     “Incredibly handsome?”
     It was him. Lexi stifled a smile in deference to the somber occasion. As a teenager, Joe had been a hot guy, but scruffy. He’d certainly matured well. Lexi barely noticed as her mother excused herself to greet her fellow mourners. She forced her gaze away from the man with the dark brown hair and chocolate eyes, the long fingers and buff body she was sure lay beneath his fitted gray suit.
     What am I doing drooling over a man? Lexi was already involved with a wonderful man.
     And besides, this was her father’s funeral.
     The church had offered to have a coffee service after the funeral, for which Lexi and her mother were extremely grateful. Her parents’ marriage ended in divorce over nine years ago, and her mother, now remarried, wasn’t inclined to host a reception at her home for her ex. Even if it was a funeral reception.
     After the divorce, her father had not remarried, and had still lived in the suburban Illinois home where Lexi had grown up. Being Dr. Randolph Hadley’s sole heir, Lexi knew that the house, among other things, would be hers. But she didn’t want to think about that right now. These were things that were going to complicate her life, things that threatened to disrupt everything she’d worked so hard for, things that would require some major decisions in the near future. But not today.
     Today was for mourning her father, a lifelong resident of Glenmore and respected family physician. Lexi’s relationship with her father had been wobbly at best and she had yet to find some closure regarding his death. Just sixty-four years old, Randolph Hadley had been struck down by a stroke. He’d survived it, only to aspirate and die of respiratory failure while at a rehabilitation facility.
     So, no, Lexi had not been prepared for her relatively young father to die. But it would be a lie to say she’d never wondered how it would be without Dr. Randolph Hadley in her life. He was her father and she loved him, but he hadn’t always been the easiest person to be around. Especially since ….
     Lexi shivered, tamping down painful thoughts. At least other painful thoughts.Across the room, Lexi’s friend Caroline was still talking to Joe. She tried to recall the last time she’d seen him, and when she remembered, she quickly pushed the image from her mind, reminding herself again to deal with just one distressing thing at a time.Today Joe looked positively gorgeous and put together—his dark hair cut short, his posture erect. He seemed utterly at ease. Back in the day, Joe had long hair he sometimes wore in a ponytail at the back of his neck, and his wardrobe consisted of grungy jeans and flannel shirts. Irresistible to a proper teenage girl, which of course she’d been.
     Now he looked like a stockbroker. The adventurous part of her was almost disappointed. Had Joe made something of himself? And why did she care? And … oh Lord, he was strolling her way.
     [...]

Bygones
Available NOW!

About the Author

Lisa K. Nielsen was born and raised in West Dundee, Illinois. Her love of books started early on, with a particular interest in mysteries.

Lisa received a B.S. degree in zoology from Iowa State University. She then attended the Physician Assistant program at the University of Iowa.

After graduation, she moved to Peoria, Illinois where her first position as a physician assistant was in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. She then moved on to the specialty of urology.

Her work was busy and time consuming, but she always made time to read. After years of dreaming about it, she finally put a pen to paper and wrote down some stories of her own.

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