Guest Blog and Giveaway with Barbara Bretton

A friend of mine loves my contemporary women's fiction but the paranormal books leave her cold. She's never said it in so many words but when you've known and loved a friend for as long as I've known and loved her, it's isn't so much what she says that clues you in but what she doesn't say. My Sugar Maple books, the ones filled with knitting and magic, just don't seem to be on her reading radar.

We were comparing notes about upcoming books and deadlines and the never-ending terror that comes with facing the blank computer screen on a daily basis. (BTW that terror never goes away. It's as sharp and fierce and deadly today as it was when I wrote my first book in 1982.

I've just learned how to keep it in line.) She told me her new book would be released in December.

I took a deep breath. "My new one comes out on Election Day."

Her silence spoke volumes and I knew the time had come to call out that big pink elephant in the room.

"It's okay," I said with a laugh. "You're not a paranormal fan. I understand."

"I love your writing," she said, sounding relieved and embarrassed and everything in between.

"Your contemporaries are on my keeper shelf but . . . " Her voice trailed off.

"Go ahead," I said. "You can say it." I mean, I don't read westerns or thrillers. We all have different likes and dislikes and that's okay. This isn't school. You can read what you want to read without worrying about the reading police staring over your shoulder and tsk-tsking your choices.

It was my friend's turn to take a deep breath of her own. "Why?" she asked. "Why in the world would you stop writing down-to-earth, real-world books and start writing paranormal with vampires and ghosts and sorceresses-in-training?"

You have to admit it's a good question. It's also one I've been asked an awful lot since I began my Sugar Maple series two years ago.

I finally have an answer.

I love my very real earthbound world. I love my everyday life. Grocery shopping. Doing laundry. Paying bills. Rooting for Maks on Dancing With The Stars. Seeing my husband smile when I conjure up something deliciously spicy in the kitchen.

It's all good. Very good, in fact.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And yet despite that I sometimes find myself imagining a secret door just beyond the produce aisle at Shoprite or a hidden room accessible through my office closet or maybe a gathering of faeries in that odd little hideaway beneath the dogwood at the far end of the backyard. And who's to say those things aren't waiting for me, hidden in plain sight? They say that human infants are born with a "third eye" that sees beyond our three-dimensional world and grows dimmer as the baby moves out of diapers and into toddlerhood. I'd love to believe that's true. I'd love to believe that all we see isn't all there is, that the world is still filled with surprises and possibilities. I'd love to think the kilt-clad bagpiper who crested the hill behind a Long Island supermarket in 1985 was stepping from a dream and not a volunteer fireman late for an Ancient Order of Hibernians meeting.

What can I say? I'm a dreamer. Always was, always will be. The little girl who believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and guardian angels is alive and well, tucked deep inside my middle-aged writer's heart and these days she's writing about a magickal small town and yarn shop in northern Vermont and loving every minute of it.

The newest Sugar Maple book is Spun by Sorcery:

Readers love to visit USA Today bestselling author Barbara Bretton's Sugar Maple. There's just one problem-it's fallen off the map!

Chloe is always losing things-but an entire town? Just when she was about to settle down in Sugar Maple with her soul-mate Luke MacKenzie, her Fae enemy Isadora strikes, and her new hometown is gone. Even the Book of Spells, her lifeline to magick, can't help her now. Just in the nick of time, her friend Janice roars up in Chloe's ancient Buick with Penny the cat and her yarn stash in tow. If she is going to save her home she has to go back to Salem, where family secrets and centuries- old feuds pull her into the fight of her life.

If you haven't yet had the chance to read this series- now's your chance.

Barbara is generously offering five complete sets of the Sugar Maple Series.

That's 5 Sugar Maple sets of 3 books each (CASTING SPELLS, LACED WITH MAGIC, and SPUN BY SORCERY) for 5 winners drawn at random.

Open to US Shipping Only

Winner TBA Wednesday Nov 10

To Enter Leave a Question or Comment for Barbara

Be Sure to Include Your Email

A Review of Laced with Magic by Barbara Bretton

.5
Four Point Five Fangs for Laced with Magic


Barbara Bretton take us back to Sugar Maple, Vermont in Laced with Magic the follow up to Casting Spells.

Luke and Chloe are doing good, so good he's even moved in with her and seems to be dealing well with the magical mishaps and townspeople, too bad some of them aren't too thrilled with him.

Then things go downhill quickly when Chloe announces Luke is going to be the permanent chief of police at a town meeting, before discussing it with him. Then his ex-wife shows up and drops a bombshell - she's been seeing and talking to their dead daughter Steffie-a daughter Chloe knew nothing about.

To really make things bad- Steffie's spirit is being held hostage by Isadora, the crazy Fae leader that Chloe banished to another realm. Isadora's hell bent on taking Sugar Maple to the other side and away from all humanity, but that will put many of the town folk in jeopardy but there are some who agree with her and are making Chloe and Luke's life miserable.

Bretton has woven (or should I say knitted) another engaging tale of magic versus humanity in an intriguing story I couldn't put down.

I hope Chloe and Luke can work things out and that Sugar Maple will be safe from Isadora but the book ends with a real cliffhanger that leaves you wondering "What now?"

It was strange to read the story from three different points of view. I am used to just one or two but to be inside the head of Chloe, Luke and Luke's ex Karen left me a little confused sometimes but it was nice being able to get the story from all angles.

It's interesting to see how preconceived notions based on appearances can really effect our judgement of people. Just because someone is beautiful doesn't mean life is easy. Chloe and Karen are complete opposites but both think the other is prettier, more womanly, etc yet in the end they are quite similar and see that no one has a charmed life-even if they have magic. I love how Bretton worked that into the story- that we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, or a person by how they look.

I also love her knitting references though I had to look some things up because I know NOTHING about knitting it makes the story new and fun learning about knitting terms and how into it some people are.

Laced with Magic will pull you right back into Sugar Maple and leave you rooting for Chloe and Luke.

All I want to know is: when's the next book going to be out?

Barbara Bretton Guest Blog and Laced with Magic Giveaway

I'm starting to think longingly about the Federal Witness Protection plan.

No, I haven't been secretly forging a life of crime here in the home state of the Sopranos. It's a whole lot scarier than that. Laced With Magic hits the stands tomorrow and I'm plotting my escape!

You would think I'd be used to it by now, wouldn't you? I've been down this road almost fifty times over the years and it never gets easier. Oh, I'm not complaining. Pre-publication jitters are a very small price to pay for the privilege of seeing my name on the spine of a book but that doesn't mean my stomach doesn't do a double back-flip every time a new title is released. Writing and publishing a book is like being strapped into the front car of a roller coaster, one of those loop-di-loop coasters that pull a 360 at 80 miles per hour while your entire life passes before your eyes.

And we keep coming back for more!

A few months ago I had the pleasure of visiting with all of you and sharing a little of the story behind Casting Spells. Laced With Magic is the sequel, a continuation of Chloe and Luke's love story with more magic, more love, and more knitting than ever before. I'm delighted to tell you that there will be even more Sugar Maple stories to come: I just signed a two-book deal for books #3 and #4 in the Sugar Maple Chronicles.

See? I'm so excited that my words are running away with me. Okay, Bretton. Take a deep breath. Center your thoughts. Back to Laced With Magic. Publishers Weekly awarded it a coveted starred review which definitely put another one of those smiles on my face. But you know what? Putting a smile on your face is what's really important and I hope Laced With Magic will do exactly that.

We pick up the story a few months after Casting Spells ends. Chloe's newfound magickal powers grow stronger every day . . . and so does her love for Sugar Maple's resident human, Luke MacKenzie. They/re teetering on the brink of taking their relationship to a more permanent level when Luke's ex-wife shows up in town and Chloe discovers that the residents of Sugar Maple aren't the only ones keeping secrets: it seems that Luke has been keeping a few of his own!

I'm giving away five copies of Laced With Magic to five lucky readers. All you have to do is leave a comment and I'll choose five winners at random on Sunday. Winners' names will be posted here and on my blog at http://bmafb.blogspot.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

Drop by my website http://www.barbarabretton.com/ or knitting blog romancingtheyarn.blogspot.com and say hello! There's always a contest going on.