Earlier this year I read and absolutely adored, The Story Guy by Mary Ann Rivers. It was her debut book and I have waiting and waiting for her to announce what she is doing next.

Mary Ann Rivers is at Smexy today to introduce us to The Burnside series and I can’t wait to start. Live, book one will be released this January. Take a look at this emotional and romantic world Mary Ann Rivers is writing.

Sam, Sarah, Destiny, and Paul Burnside were born, and grew up, in the tight knit Southside neighborhood of Lakefield, Ohio.

Patrick and Marie Burnside were parents who wanted the best for their kids, including the kind of true love they shared. Patrick operated a limousine service, Marie loved her kids, worked when she could for their school, and then, her family lost her when Paul and Destiny were still little and Sam and Sarah were teenagers.

The death of Marie Burnside had resonance for all of the children, and broke Patrick Burnside’s heart. The series opens when the kids are grown-up, still in Lakefield, and have just lost their father to cancer. All four of them are at a crossroads and poised to find the life and love their parents always wanted for them, and make their own spot in the world.

This is a family all of us might really know. A family who fights and makes up and takes care of each other. A family with very different people, but who were raised in love, and so value its power in their life. In this four book series and related novellas, you’ll meet this family, and the people of their neighborhood. You’ll also slowly learn the love story of their parents, the love that started it all.

LIVE – Destiny Burnside’s book. The youngest middle sister, Des is the peacemaker, the caregiver, and has been unemployed for six months after a layoff. When she isn’t driving her dad’s old limo, she’s at the library computer carrels searching for a job and mentally lusting after the artisan woodcarver the Lakefield Metropolitan Library’s hired to restore its atrium (Carrie West’s library! Look for a cameo appearance). Hefin Thomas is the artisan woodcarver Des has noticed, and who wouldn’t? He’s Welsh, dark-eyed, taciturn and yes, he’s noticed Des’s noticing. He’s noticed.

LAUGH – Sam Burnside is the eldest, an overworked doctor scrambling to open a low-income clinic in his neighborhood, and he can’t seem to make anything, ever, in his entire life, make sense. Until he meets Nina Paz, a farmer for a farm-to-forks collective whose intensity and energy and passion are a match for his own, and who makes his crazy life stand still. Who makes him laugh, finally.

LOVE – Paul “PJ” Burnside, the youngest, is gorgeous, sensitive, and a twenty-two year old cello prodigy. Needless to say, trailing behind his brother and sisters has been an exercise in lifelong frustration. He loves his family, but they barely understand what he’s about, and what he’s about, what he as been about since he was five years old, is Lacey Radcliffe, his sister Destiny’s lifelong best friend, eight years older, and his former babysitter. Lacey Radcliffe is a fiercely talented, street smart nurse and single mom who doesn’t give herself a single quarter. The one time she strayed off her path with a neighborhood hustler, she became the only college student she knew nursing a baby during finals. Sure, she’s had some of the best conversations of her life with PJ, even when they were kids. Sure, he’s the only one who really knows what she’s been through because she can never resist confessing her heart to those pretty blue eyes. But his love for her is surely just an old crush he can’t shake, right?

ALWAYS – Sarah Burnside, the eldest middle sister believes in asking for forgiveness instead of permission. She believes it’s no better to be safe than sorry. She believes her first idea is the best one, and a chance not taken is a life wasted. She’s had multiple careers, all of them by her wits, she’s too cool for school. She’s spent almost a year recovering from an accident that almost tore her family apart, though, so she’s determined to show herself, and them, that she can make a beautiful life on her own without worrying them, and has joined a guild arts collective running a letterpress. Owen Merritt is careful, brilliant, and everything he has in his life he’s had to work harder for than anyone he knows. A professor at Lakefield State University, his life is a collection of agonized decisions and an example of almost perfect planning. Sarah thinks Owen doesn’t know how to really live. Owen thinks Sarah doesn’t get life. It surprises them both when they discover they don’t want to live without the other.

Learn more about LIVE here: http://sparq.me/livebymaryannrivers

About Mary Ann Rivers:

Mary Ann Rivers was an English and music major and went on to earn her MFA in creative writing, publishing poetry in journals and leading creative-writing workshops for at-risk youth. While training for her day job as a nurse practitioner, she rediscovered romance on the bedside tables of her favorite patients. Now she writes smart and emotional contemporary romance, imagining stories featuring the heroes and heroines just ahead of her in the coffee line. Mary Ann Rivers lives in the Midwest with her handsome professor husband and their imaginative school-aged son.

Connect with Mary Ann

Facebook | Twitter | Website

Connect with Loveswept

Facebook | Twitter | Website