At the first opportunity, Max Howard left the farm he grew up on near Pink Hill, NC. Armed with 2 years of college from LCC in Kinston, NC and his Real Estate Salesman's license, he moved to Arapahoe, NC wanting to be near the water. It took a year of waiting tables before Ray Brinson gave him a shot at selling real estate and he proved immediately he could sell becoming the top producer as he beat the highways and back roads of Pamlico county searching for FSBO's (for sale by owner). The locals realized he could be trusted and called him constantly, trusting him to handle their real estate needs. He dated occasionally, living frugally, in a very small rental house on Seafarer Road for 8 or 9 years not wanting to get involved romantically, but enjoying casual relationships with each year's new crop of summer waitresses. On one of his forays, he chanced on the house of his dreams and made an offer to the New Jersey couple that had built it to retire in but found it much, much too quiet and tranquil for their lifestyles. They'd posted a FSBO out front and left. He stole it when they accepted his second counter. What followed was like a merry-go-round settling into his new gabled, 4 level home, complete with an elevator, on the banks of the Neuse River at its confluence with the Pamlico Sound, meeting Candi, the girl of his dreams, becoming involved with the Jernigans at Janiero wanting to build a sub-division on their property, and picking up listing after listing in the Oriental, NC area as property values sky-rocketed with Oriental becoming the sailboat capital of the east coast. Now in business for himself, with his marriage to Candi just a few weeks away, tragedy struck knocking him off his heel's leaving him with an emptiness, wondering if it could ever be overcome................
About the Author: I was born in the Maxwell's Mill section of Duplin County, NC in 1941. After graduating high school, I spent a tour in the Air Force before beginning my fifty years career selling restaurant equipment. During the last 25 years, I also held an active real estate "brokers" license. Traveling northeastern North Carolina as a "traveling salesman" for over 30 years, I met many interesting people. Many traveled like me. Others owned restaurants or were employed by school systems, hospitals or served on church or club committees. Each had an interesting story to tell. Many were shared with me. Writing a book about Jim Holt, allowed me; though fictional, to share some of those adventures with my readers. Over the ensuing years I have written many accounts of my travels and a couple of years ago decided it was time to write a novel using northeastern North Carolina as my setting and the 50's 60's and 70's as my timeline. Before that, beginning in 1999, I wrote and published two non-fictional books; one about the "CB" radio craze of the 70s and a country cookbook with many of my mother's recipes and included many stories about growing up in rural Duplin County, NC I published my first romantic novel in March of 2011. With my third romantic novel being released in May 012, I'm already at work on two more novels and an update to my cookbook first published in 2000. Today, fifty years after I began my sales career; May 14, 1962, I still am involved in sales but restrict my customer base to hospitals, public school foodservice and an occasional church kitchen operating exclusively from my home located near Winterville, NC My wife and I are very involved in our church; Red Oak Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. Diana is my third wife. We met on the internet; fell in love and were married on November 2, 2007. My hobbies are many and diverse encompassing woodworking, decoys, watercolors, pencil sketching, photography, ham radio, genealogy, and writing of course.