Monica’s work-in-progress is the first in a trilogy, The Windy City Roses, about three sisters facing midlife challenges.

Kerrie’s Story is about Kerrie Rose, a forty-year-old single woman who learned early in life that she can’t trust men. What will she do when the promotion she’s had her eye on depends on getting help from a man whose high school prank humiliated her nearly thirty years ago?

CHARACTERS

Kerrie Rose: The youngest of the three Rose sisters, Kerrie traded her life in the Windy City for one in the Big Apple. Currently Brand Manager for the marketing firm Smith and Hazel, she hopes to be promoted to Director of Brand Management. She’s confident, resourceful, and ambitious, but she’s a bit of a control freak and perfectionist, too.

Joe Wallach: Joe’s been a risk taker all his life. Now forty, he knows that for the sake of his troubled teenage daughter and his ailing mother, it’s time he settle down. And the woman with whom he wants to settle down is the daughter of family friends, Kerrie Rose. The only problem is Kerrie hates him because of a prank he pulled on her in high school. If only he could remember what it was so he could make amends.

Rico Cabello: The Spanish real estate agent hired to sell the Rose sisters’ family home. He’s charming, well-dressed, and is used to getting what he wants; He wants Kerrie.

 

EXCERPT:

The words the slim side understated Kerrie’s childhood body. While her peers’ figures bloomed, her buds, along with every other body part affected by puberty, went on strike. Medical tests showed nothing, and the doctors said “be patient.” That gave little comfort to a sixteen-year-old with a chest flat as a board you could cut vegetables on.

But then a miracle of biblical proportion occurred. At least that’s what Kerrie, the despondent college freshman, thought. Most kids came home that first year with an extra fifteen pounds. She hit the jackpot. Not only did the added fifteen pounds look good on her, but the majority of the weight had formed into a pair of boobs. Delighted, she strutted around Tangelwood Forest Shopping Center like a peacock, her chest thrust as far as it could. And at least once a day, she paraded past Joey Wallach’s house, which was only a couple blocks from hers, hoping he’d see her from the window, run out his front door, kneel at her feet, and beg forgiveness. Instead, his older brother Roger stepped outside and told her to keep her germs on the other side of the street. The Wallach family was known more for their brawn than their brains.