HANDLE WITH CARE (The Ludzecky Sisters Book 5) (16 page)

In PRIMARY COLORS , Nia Ludzecky is stuck in her grief and can’t find a way out of her sorrow over the untimely death of her beloved husband. When she meets famous modern artist Rafe Castle, she’s attracted to his gentle demeanor and lack of arrogance. But despite her feelings for him, she still finds it hard to leave the past behind and embrace love after loss. Rafe, however, doesn’t give up on her.

RISKY BUSINESS follows Magdalena Ludzecky, a career woman extraordinaire, who has everything, including Logan Price, her coworker and best friend outside of the family. But then they find attraction growing between them. And no, they both think, this can’t happen! Do they have a chance at romance or are Logan and Magdalena going to lose each other forever? Plot twists abound in this friends to lovers tale.

In THE WAY WE WERE , Ana Ludzecky had it all—a sexy husband, a beautiful daughter, a great job and the best extended family in the world. Then, tragedy strikes and her life turns upside down. Unable to bear the suffering of her sisters, she has trouble settling back into life with her husband Jared Creswell and their daughter. But Jared makes some bad choices that eventually lead to the dissolution of their marriage. Thrown together again, will the love that has never died surface and save them both?

At sixteen, Sofia Ludzecky, from HANDLE WITH CARE , was diagnosed with leukemia and the disease changed her future. She’s chosen a Zen lifestyle as a yoga studio owner and teacher. When she meets football Coach Max Walker at the high school where she’s running a class, his outgoing personality, his bent for competition and his boisterous family upset her. But Max wants Sofia, and he’s always gotten what he wants.

In LOVE STORY , Elizabeita Ludzecky fears deeply for her family, which has been fraught with tragedy. She copes by being the carefree, risk-taking baby of the family, as well as an up-and-coming curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. But when hardened cop Nick Casella goes undercover at the museum, he sees the real Elizabeita and he’s shockingly attracted to this beautiful too-young-for-him woman. Elizabeita returns his feelings and goes after him with all she has. With secret and lies as the basis of a relationship, does this one have any chance of surviving?

For each of The Ludzecky Sisters books, I worried at the start whether or not I could make the characters as likeable as their predecessors, if the plot would hold together as well as the other storylines, and if the narrative would have the same charm as the previous ones. I was pleased when both my copy editor and proofreaders all loved Sofia’s
story. There were a lot of challenges with the book.

I knew right away that when the reader first gets to know Max, he’s nowhere near as likeable as the guys who came before him. But Max’s charisma comes from the fact that he knows who he is and he likes himself. Basically he’s just a good man, a jock, who loves his family, his job and his life. He wasn’t prepared for Sofia to tip that life
on its axis. And when she does, he’s game for anything. He willingly grows and changes. I don’t know about you, but his reaction to Sofia’s cancer didn’t make me dislike him. I thought it was totally understandable. And finally, he’s such “a guy” that you forgive him a lot.

On the other hand, I fell in love with Sofia in previous books. At one point, Magdalena asks her how she can call herself
lucky, and I wondered the same. I so admire her attitude towards life, her determination not to give into cynicism and anxiety. She takes the hand fate has dealt her and makes a good life. I also understood her reticence to let Max come crashing into her carefully constructed existence. And she was right, he upsets everything. Yet, true to the woman she is, Sofia embraces the disruption and Max
himself. And in the end, she shows she isn’t perfect when she rejects him. She’s human and the fears he engenders in her are too much to handle. Of course, we’re thrilled when they both realize they’re wrong. (Isn’t it funny how she told him?)

I have to say returning to a high school again, to teachers and kids, to the bonds educators make with their students and each other was fun for me.
I taught for decades and still look back on that career with utter fondness and satisfaction. I love revisiting those days in my books.

Only one more Ludzecky sister to feature, Elizabeita, and I’ll tell you I have the same concerns about her book as I did all the others. More, even. Elizabeita is one tough nut to crack. If you’ve followed her throughout her sisters’ lives, you can already
tell how complicated she is. Now, to make her likeable, to hold the plot together and to give it the charm of the others—I guess I won’t stop worrying until her book is done, too.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you like the last book, LOVE STORY.

Kathy

Click here for a look at Elizabeita’s life in,
LOVE STORY
.

Click here for a peek at
CLOSE TO YOU
, Caterina’s story.

Click here for a look at
PROMISES TO KEEP
Luke’s story.
He’s the older brother of all these females!

Elizabeita entered one of the conference rooms at the Metropolitan Museum and took a seat in the back. Most of the Contemporary Art staff had already gathered and she noticed a workman touching up some paint on the side wall. Its scent was strong, but not unpleasant.

“How’s everybody today?” Delores Martin, the administrator in charge of the division asked
her staff. In addition to her, the head curator, three assistant curators, three collections managers, one research associate and a variety of technicians completed their department.

Mumbles of
good
, or
okay
, or
tired
abounded. Elizabeita liked the people she worked with as well as the two interns from School of Art in Manhattan.

After some announcements, Delores smiled at her. “Elizabeita,
I’ve got good news for you.”

“Seriously? We’re getting it?” She’d been working on bringing a traveling exhibit on Dali and Picasso to the Met.

“Yes, we are. A gallery in San Francisco had to drop out because of a fire. We’re getting their slot in November.”

“Hallelujah!” Success meant a lot to her. Sometimes, she had to pinch herself to believe she’d actually gotten an assistant curatorship
three years ago.

“You can expect the setup to begin as soon as the Matisse exhibit ends and is broken down.”

“Great.”

“Ellen,” Elizabeita’s counterpart, “about your project. I’m sorry, but because we didn’t get a grant we expected from the city, it’s impossible to have two more exhibits before the end of the year.”

“But you said it was on track to be accepted.”

“I thought it
would be. I didn’t plan on the cut. I’m sorry.”

Elizabeita knew how Ellen must feel. She’d experienced rejection at work, too. Then again, everybody did.

“Make an appointment to see me and we’ll talk.”

They covered other business, then Dee said, “We’ll end with something we need to discuss. The emails our department has been getting.”

For a while now, the staff at the Met had been
receiving emails which consisted of a line or two about modern art. The emails had gone from innocuous statements about its lack of relevance, its nonsensical presentation to branding style as pagan, blasphemous and sacrilegious. After studying the history of art at Oxford, Elizabeita was well acquainted with fanatics.