More Updates Than You Can Shake A Stick At

This is one of many update notes. I apologize in advance for blitzing you with info you may or may not want.


Kim Smith, writer and wonderful Blog Talk Radio host, interviewed me on Tuesday and to say I had a blast is putting it mildly. If you'd like to listen, click here and follow instructions on the screen.

Did I tell you about the totally terrific Bonnie Blose at Accessible World who invited me to spend an hour with her and her wonderful readers, talking about writing and love and life? I'll be back again for another visit at the end of August but you can listen to last month's free-wheeling chat right here. This was pretty much a writer's dream visit. Bonnie hosts a romance novel book club and somehow they found Sentimental Journey, a twenty year old Harlequin American Romance of mine. Sentimental Journey is one of my all-time favorite writing experiences. It was part of the wonderful Century of American Romances, a truly spectacular group of books that deserved a far wider audience than they received. Sentimental Journey was about the World War II homefront here in the United States and its follow-up book, Stranger in Paradise, continued the story during the McCarthy Era 1950s. Can you imagine my excitement when out of the blue I received an email from Bonnie and discovered that my books had found new readers after all this time? I love the internet!

I'm embarking on a gigantic blog tour on Monday so be prepared for lots of links. You're going to know everything there is to know about me (even things you'd rather not know!) by the time this is over.

Willa, my wonderfully talented web designer and jewelry maker, will be doing a cosmetic overhaul of my personal blog the next few days so there won't be any new content until Sunday or Monday which means I'll be posting a lot of book-related info here in the interim. I promise compensatory knitting content!

Laced With Magic goes on sale Tuesday August 4th and I'm entering the Crazed Author Zone. As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm not too great at letting go of a manuscript. Given my druthers, I'd still be making revisions in the back of the truck as the books leave the printer.

Did I tell you that Publishers Weekly gave Laced With Magic a coveted starred review? In case you missed it:

Laced with Magic Barbara Bretton. Berkley, $15 paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-425-22752-7

Half-sorceress Chloe Hobbs and policeman Luke MacKenzie, the only humans in the sleepy Vermont town of Sugar Maple, face worldly and unearthly challenges in this sweetly charming sequel to 2008's Casting Spells. When Luke's ex-wife, Karen, shows up in town claiming that their dead daughter is trying to ask them for help, Chloe must deal with smalltown gossip and fix her relationship with Luke while she battles her old Fae enemy, Isadora, over the child's spirit and the future of Sugar Maple. Bretton seamlessly blends a playful world of eccentric and meddling supernatural creatures living in the midst of New England with a warm, natural and romantic story and just a hint of mystery. Scenes in Chloe's yarn shop and helpful knitting tips hold extra appeal for yarn aficionados while never distracting from the plot.

And Penguin posted an interview with me on their new paranormal website. You can find it here.

Jeremy Bredeson, a wonderful knitter and writer and friend, posted a review of Laced With Magic on Facing North, a terrific and very magical website I think you'll enjoy.

Oh, and did I tell you that all of our tomatoes are dead or dying thanks to the same blight that destroyed Ireland's potato crop? We finally decide to try our hand again at growing and a blight strikes up and down the east coast. I mean, what are the odds??

More to come. Stay tuned!

Baby Cashmere and a sneak peek CLOSED

CLOSED Which came first: the Baby Cashmere or the sneak peek? I'm not sure there's an answer to that question so let's start with the yarny goodness. How about six skeins (yes, really and truly six; I counted) (used both hands so it's gotta be more than five, right?) of gorgeous soft yummy Elann Baby Cashmere.
There's not all that much cashmere in it, to be honest: 60% baby alpaca, 30% merino wool, and 10% cashmere but it's so soft and so pretty that it's irresistible. We're talking US3 needles, 100 m - 109 y in each skein. It's #3317, Morning Mist, and you're going to love it.

Send me an email here with MIST in the subject header and I'll pick the winner on Sunday night. (I didn't use the on-line random number generator last night. The site must have been down so I hollered into the living room to Goldisox: "Pick a number between X and XXX" and he yelled back, "Seventy-three!" which is how Leslie B came to be our winner.)


Willa, friend and web designer and jewelry designer extraordinaire, worked her magic on my website and the first chapter of LACED WITH MAGIC is posted and ready. Let me know what you think.

A big fat box of WHITE

I blame Willa. Willa is my friend and my web designer and one of the first on-line journalers. I've been following her life for maybe twelve years now and its entirely her fault that I followed her right back into knitting.

It was the Chinchilla scarf that did it. I read the instructions. They seemed easy enough, even for someone who hadn't touched a pair of needles since 1986. I read about Berroco Chinchilla yarn. I bought some on eBay. I dug out a pair of aluminum straights.

And then I cast on and the rest is (sadly for my bank account) history.

Oh the wonders of a Chinchilla scarf! The soft splendor of it! The miracle of fluffy goodness that hides a multitude of sins. And when you strand it with sequins -- oo la la!

Do I really have to tell you that I bought a whole mess of Chinchilla? Do I really have to tell you that I knitted so many Chinchilla scarves that PETA investigated my output just to be sure I was endangering only Acrylics?

And are you the least bit surprised that I found a motherlode tucked away in my office closet behind the college-ruled spiral notebooks and the boxes of Paper Direct goodies I haven't touched since the early 90s?

Of course you're not surprised. You know me too well for that. So how about helping a struggling knitter make room for some new goodies and casting in your lot for a box of fluffy WHITE? Send me an email here with WHITE in the subject header and sometime tomorrow I'll announce a winner. (It's not as snaggled as it looks in the photo. It's still neatly tied together in a hank but a tad rumpled.)

You too could be the proud knitter of 587 fluffy sequinned scarves!

(If you have a moment, check out Willa's terrific jewelry on Etsy. Her storefront is called Intentional Charms--a great place to do some holiday shopping.)