What happens when a phobic writer engages in a battle to the death with her own nom de plume, while her ex, his harem, and her crazy aunt “Elizabeth Taylor” lay minefields all around her?

Jennifer McNair novels are flying off the bookshelves, and her publisher is delighted. So delighted, in fact, her editor has made a great offer for the next book that involves a multi-city book tour. Which is fine and dandy, except … Jennifer McNair doesn’t exist. “Jennifer McNair” is the pen name adopted by Lyssa Jones, a sufferer of social phobia with touches of body dysmorphic disorder, to preserve her privacy. Since her highly public divorce from political wannabe Parker Beaumont, her hometown of tiny Bliss Valley, Iowa, has been her hideaway. If she steps outside her constricted comfort zone, her face flushes, her skin crawls, and her stomach turns. Just ask the rubber tree plant.

Not to worry, says Lyssa’s best friend, Mayor Holly Bliss. This self-proclaimed drama queen will publicly portray Jennifer McNair during the book tour. She has nothing better to do since the town has made the Mayor-ship a figurehead position anyway, after two hundred years of Bliss leadership (not that she’s bitter). Besides, Holly points out, Lyssa can’t leave Bliss: She has to care for her aunt, who recently suffered a small stroke and now thinks she’s Elizabeth Taylor.

Parker Beaumont’s political career suffered in his divorce from Lyssa, and he is gearing up to attempt a recovery in the fall. But this summer he’ll be turning his inheritance, Bliss’s internationally-known architectural masterpiece, into a bed and breakfast, while avoiding the attentions of family, advisors, and the press.   

Park’s mother, who was instrumental to Lyssa’s downfall and gleefully greased the skids under their divorce, sends care packages (Lyssa dubs them "The Flavors") to Bliss - a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead intended to help Park with the bed and breakfast - and keep him away from Lyssa. Since chemistry was never one of their problems, and since Bliss was where they originally fell in love, Park and Lyssa rediscover the bond that originally brought them together, despite the chaos that surrounds them.

While Lyssa is juggling Park, the Flavors, and her aunt (“that’s Miss Taylor”), Holly is making the role of Jennifer entirely her own, redefining Lyssa as Jennifer’s drudge of a typist, while Lyssa battles demons both internal and external to regain control. When a famous Hollywood beau hunk falls for “Jennifer,” Holly becomes insanely possessive of the character – to the point of attempting murder. As each of the Flavors fall accidental victim to Holly’s inept schemes, Park wonders if his ex really is as crazy as his mother always insisted.

Will Lyssa regain her strength and confidence in time to save herself and her aunt from Holly’s final attempt at the ultimate takeover of Jennifer McNair?

Click here to read the first chapter of Living In Bliss.