Life changes at the Speed of Light

Welcome to the landing page for A Little Family Business, book eight in the Operation Quickline series. It is available in paperback ($15.99), and ebook ($3.99) at the retailers below. The book runs about 210 pages and features Lisa Wycherly and Sid Hackbirn as undercover counter-espionage agents trying to live normal lives, only life keeps changing.

Synopsis

After Lisa makes a disastrous pickup for Operation Quickline, the top-secret courier group that she and her partner Sid Hackbirn work for, she realizes it’s time for her and Sid to get married. They’re already re-building their house and have merged their assets. Sid’s given up sleeping around.

But then the two have to take custody of Sid’s son, Nick, after the boy’s mother dies. Suddenly becoming full-time parents to an almost adolescent is hard enough. There’s also getting a grieving and clingy Nick settled, planning a wedding with Lisa’s mother intent on going hog-wild, and even finding someone to take care of the pets. Sid’s and Lisa’s lives have gotten far more complicated than either imagined.

And that’s not counting their little side business. Thanks to the bad pickup, Sid and Lisa are ordered to find a missing operative and get embroiled in an arms-trading scheme. Worse yet, Nick figures out all too quickly that his dad and Lisa don’t have a normal job, and it’s not long before the spy business becomes a family thing, assuming they all can stay alive long enough.

How I wrote A Little Family Business

When I started the early re-writes on the Operation Quickline series, Sid Hackbirn’s voice began creeping in. Lisa Wycherly is the primary narrator for the action, but as I went over That Old Cloak and Dagger Routine (book one), I could hear Sid commenting on the action. So, I let him add comments, which appear in the square brackets with his initials at the end throughout the text in the series. I even showed how the comments “began” in the beginning of book three, Deceptive Appearances.

Sid’s voice got quite the workout in My Sweet Lisa, the immediate prequel to A Little Family Business. Well, with Lisa kidnapped, she wasn’t around for a significant chunk of the narration, and when I thought about it, Sid faced the most significant character growth in that one. But then, when it came time to re-write A Little Family Business, I realized there was a third voice. With Sid and Lisa taking custody of Nick, he becomes a part of their operation. He also has a unique perspective on the action.

Nick’s Voice

Like Sid, Nick writes his comments from a much later vantage point than Lisa. She writes from the immediate perspective, this being her journal. Sid comments from some later time in the future when most of their work has been de-classified. Nick writes at a very specific time and for a very specific reason. There’s a new woman in his life, and his background makes things interesting for them. Keep an eye on the To Breanna sections in this and upcoming books in the series. I’m telling their love story at the same time as commenting and embellishing the action. It won’t be in chronological order, but watch the date headings – they’re an important clue.