By Design

by Donna Brody

Interior designer Michelle Maguire is a little reluctant to hire house painter Colin Read for her biggest-ever design project, the renovation of an historic home into a new public library branch. But, with her regular painter unavailable and eager to start the project, Michelle puts aside her doubts and hires Colin, hoping he will fit in with the rest of her crew. As the two develop a friendship during working hours, Michelle quickly realizes her new employee is not who she thought. A college professor on sabbatical from a major university, Colin is haunted by false allegations of misconduct with a student. Working as a house painter allows him freedom to make a living and time to do research for a book he is writing on his possible famous ancestor, notorious pirate Mary Read, while he debates whether or not he wants to return to his teaching career. When another former student of Colin’s from the university goes missing, local police start eyeing Colin as a suspect in her disappearance. Can Michelle find a way to help him clear his good name so the two can enjoy a future together? This novel is the author’s third in a series following publication of BY ACCIDENT in 2017 and BY CHANCE in 2018.

329 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2020

About the author

Donna Brody was born and raised on the south side of Chicago as the middle child in a family of seven children. After marrying and starting a family, she moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia where she and her husband and four children resided for the next ten plus years. During that time she added a master's degree in liberal studies to her bachelor's degree in English and began teaching full time in a community college. Another move to the Midwest in the early 2000's landed the couple in Northwest Indiana for twelve years. Still teaching developmental English in another community college system, Donna started her first novel, By Accident, in Indiana. She wrote much of it while traveling back and forth by train to visit family and friends in Virginia. After retirement from teaching and a move to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 2014, Donna decided it was time to finish that novel. Her second novel, By Chance, a sequel, was self-published a year and a half later. Although she didn't plan to add a third novel to create a series, the pandemic of 2020 afforded the chance to do just that and resulted in By Design. Her next project might be a children's chapter book starring her seven grandchildren.