love, romance and business

In the four-volume Love, Romance and Business series, Gail Hewitt introduces us to Maggie McLaurin, someone who seems to have it all - brains, looks, education, and family connections. In truth, Maggie is a lonely, if lovely, girl who, as she grows into an even lovelier woman, can't quite get her life together but never stops trying. She wants love and romance, but it's business that provides the most long-term satisfaction, at least to a point. Read along as Maggie does her best to manage her personal issues - not to mention the mother from hell and some very determined and sexy men - even as she learns that life can be more unpredictable and occasionally stranger than it already is.

title-by-title

The Girl Who Almost Died Of Love. (Projected Publication in both Kindle and Trade Paperback Formats 2013; ASIN; Pending; ISBN Pending.) - Number One in the Love, Romance and Business series. Maggie McLaurin is the seventeen-year-old daughter of an old and wealthy Atlanta family. When she develops a mysterious, undiagnosable ailment, her impatient mother deposits her at a clinic on the shores of Lake Garda in northern Italy owned and operated by a friend of the famly. In this luxurious retreat for the seriously famous, well-connected, occasionally perverted, or simply well-to-do, the sad but beautiful young girl learns much about people - some good, some bad - and along the way does some very necessary growing up, especially in beautiful, hypnotic Venice.

Love Me After. (Projected Publication in both Kindle and Trade Paperback Formats 2013; ASIN; Pending; ISBN Pending.) - Number Two in the Love, Romance and Business series. Maggie McLaurin - beautiful, intelligent daughter of an old and wealthy Atlanta family - thinks she has it all figured out in 1998. There's her job as AVP with BellSouth - predictable and even a little boring in its responsibilities, but solid as the company's headquarters building on Peachtree Street. She's recently gotten out of an interesting but inappropriate relationship with a business associate, and has begun to date a fascinating man who seems guaranteed to keep her interested without threatening her emotional well-being. Her house in Buckhead is as charming as it is well-situated, and just far enough away from the big house on West Paces Ferry in which her mother still lives to be psychologically comfortable. As for her mother, the indomitable and anti-maternal Elizabeth McLaurin, she's pretty much living her own life without giving Maggie too much grief. Then things begin to fall apart, and Maggie must reassess all her expectations and assumptions. What she does next takes her into a world that neither she nor anyone else could have envisioned, as personal issues are engulfed in a horrifying act of terrorism.

Loved Me Once. (Published Kindle format - ASIN: B001RTT6SU; Projected Trade Paperback Publcation 2013; ISBN Pending) - Number Three in the Love, Romance and Business series. By 2008, Maggie McLaurin has settled into something of a groove, not a good groove. She's bored to death with her job as a giver of seminars for a New York consulting firm. She hasn't had a seriously satisfying relationshp with a man in longer than she cares to remember. Her best friend is a continent away in Los Angeles. Back in Atlanta, her mother is sinking steadily deeper into Alzheimer's and, in the process, becoming even more hostile toward her only child. As she copes with all this, Maggie's financial situation is becoming desperate. On top of everything else, her first true love, the one who broke her heart when she was seventeen, is - yet again - all over the headlines. When you're about to go under yourself, there's nothing less pleasant than constant reminders of "the old boyfriend who made good." Then, just when she thinks that things can't get worse, they do.

Love Me Now. (Published Kindle format - ASIN: B008H7HHGI ; Projected Trade Paperback Publication 2013; ISBN Pending) Number Four in the Love, Romance and Business series. Maggie McLaurin thinks her big romance has arrived when she agrees to marry a romantic man who wants only, he says, to take care of all her problems and love her devotedly all of her days. The only problem, it turns out, is that he didn't reveal everything he wants, not to mention the baggage he brings with him. To complicate matters, the old boyfriend who made good is back in her life, as is the sexually obsessed young man who stalked and threatened her in Loved Me Once. Fortunately, her best friend is back in New York, herself fleeing a broken romance, and the two discover than friendship can not only provide a shoulder to cry on but even become a matter of life and death.