It’s never been a secret that I had a bout with clinical
depression quite a while ago. It was one of those textbook case things where my
doctor and I talked, he gave me a prescription (and monitored my use of it and
its success), and all went well. Although there’s a little spot inside of me
that is reserved for terror that it will come back, the truth is that life went
on. I’ve been blessed. Oh, boy howdy, have I been blessed. Because it’s not
that way for everyone.
I didn’t mean, when I started to write The Happiness Pact, for Libby’s story to be about anxiety. Or
clinical depression. If I were assigning a trope to the book, I would have said
it was an ugly duckling. Libby, after all, has freckles and a few extra pounds
and a messy brown braid and is a poster child for average. Ordinary. She is the
one who says, “Do you know I’ve stopped wearing brown because I’m afraid I’ll
stand up against a tree trunk and disappear because that’s how monochromatic I
am? Do you know what people say when they look at our high school yearbook?
They say, ‘Who’s the girl standing between Tucker and Arlie? She looks familiar,
but I can’t place her.’ That’s why I’m good at hospitality—because I am so much
a brown part of the background.”
I was good with that. Good with Libby the way she was. But
the plain, the ordinary, the average, the brown—they were all on the surface. Libby
is everybody’s best friend. She wrote the book on nice. She’s not
beautiful—she’s so average she never wears brown because she’s afraid she’ll
get lost in the background. Among friends of many talents, she probably doesn’t
have one.
What she has is a secret. Even from Tucker Llewellyn, her
best friend since they shared the hospital nursery the night they were born
(and from me, I might add.) No one knows that clinical depression and anxiety
disorder are the monsters under her bed.
The story of Libby and Tucker’s journey was fun to
write—Tucker is the most lovable of klutzes. It was also excruciatingly
difficult. I’m so grateful to Jim Cangany for helping me through the murky
waters of Libby’s painful illness.
I hope you come along for the ride.
*
Tucker Llewellyn and Libby Worth—strictly platonic!—realize
they’re each at a crossroads. Tucker is successful, but he wants a wife and
kids: the whole package. Libby knows that small-town life has her set in her
ways; the tearoom owner needs to get out more.
So they form a pact: Libby will play matchmaker and Tucker
will lead her on the adventure she desperately needs. But the electricity Libby
feels when they shake on it should be a warning sign. Soon the matchmaking
mishaps pile up, and a personal crisis tests Libby’s limits. Will Tucker be
there for her as a best friend…or something more?
PURCHASE A COPY OF THE HAPPINESS PACT AT THESE LOCATIONS.
*
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Liz Flaherty thinks one
of the things that keeps you young when you quite obviously aren’t anymore is
the constant chances you have to reinvent yourself. Her latest professional
incarnation is as a Harlequin Heartwarming author and she is enjoying every
minute! She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please come and see her at http://www.facebook.com/lizkflaherty
