Oooo we're just motoring through Authors for the Holidays! I hope yall are having a blast meeting all of these wonderful ladies.
Today we've got Virginia Kantra joining us. She's another of our lovely NC authors and has an amazing new book out, Carolina Home. It was one of those "favorite pjs" type of books that's just comfortable and makes you feel like your home and surrounded by the people you love. Gah it was excellent! And you've got a chance to win a SIGNED copy today!! *Squee* so excited for you guys! I'm handing the blog off to Virginia now so yall give her a nice big welcome and enjoy her post :)~~*~~*~~
Newcomer Allison Carter came to Dare Island to escape the emotional demands of her wealthy family. The young teacher aims to build a life here, to make a lasting place for herself. She doesn't want to be another Woman Who Once Dated Matt Fletcher. It's both tempting and dangerous to believe she can be something more.
Then Matt's brother Luke makes a sudden return home, with a child of his own--and a request that will change all their lives. With a child's welfare at stake, Matt must turn to Allison to teach him to let go of the past, open his eyes...and follow his heart.
Somewhere in all my books, the hero feeds the heroine. Maybe because I’m married to a man who can cook, I find something sexy and satisfying about a man providing for his mate. Or maybe food really does equal love...one way that we show love, anyway. Mothers baking cookies or cutting up meat for their children. Girlfriends consoling each other with wine and chocolate. Husbands and wives sharing bites and tastes in a restaurant.
Christmas is all about love. So it makes sense to me that it’s also all about food.
In our house, the most important meal of the year is Christmas Eve dinner. My family is from Eastern Europe. My husband’s is from Italy. I cheerfully sacrificed my Slovak mushroom-and-barley soup and sauerkraut for my husband’s traditional Seven Fishes, “simplified” to a single, rich, saffron-scented pasta sauce with shrimp, clams, calamari, mussels, salmon, monkfish, and cod.
But I set the table the way my baba, my grandmother, did.
In the middle is the Advent wreath, all four candles burning down now, symbolizing the light to come. The tablecloth is white, and there’s always a piece of straw from the Nativity scene at church to represent the manger. (Our older son was very distressed the year our church swapped out the traditional hay for pine straw.)
In the center of each plate is a dollop of honey and an oplatki wafer, thin unleavened bread similar to communion wafers, stamped with pictures of the Holy Family. There’s one pink one, which goes to my husband as head of the family. Yes, we get all traditional on Christmas Eve. I go around the table making the sign of the cross on the children’s foreheads, blessing them from youngest to oldest for the coming year, exchanging kisses. Then I bless my husband, and he blesses me, which involves more kisses and getting honey in my hair.
Even though the five of us fit comfortably around the kitchen table, this meal we eat in the dining room. A special place. Sacred space.
No surprise that the importance of the family meal, the symbolism of the family table, shows up when I’m writing about the Fletchers of Dare Island. Here’s an excerpt from Carolina Home to give you a “taste.”
*****
“Thank you. I had a good time,” Allison said as Matt walked her away from the inn down the garden path. She carried her wet clothes in a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag over one arm, leftovers in another, the recipe for lasagna al forno tucked into her purse next to her blinking cell phone. A quick glance at the display revealed her mother had called.
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New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra credits her love for strong heroes and courageous heroines to a childhood spent devouring fairy tales.
Virginia is the author of more than twenty books of contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense. Her stories have earned numerous awards including Romance Writers of America's RITA Award, eight RITA nominations, and two National Readers' Choice Awards. Her work includes the popular Children of the Sea series and, in e-book format, the Sweet Home, Carolina stories. In July 2012 look for Carolina Home, the first book in her new Dare Island novels.
a Rafflecopter giveawayChristmas is all about love. So it makes sense to me that it’s also all about food.
In our house, the most important meal of the year is Christmas Eve dinner. My family is from Eastern Europe. My husband’s is from Italy. I cheerfully sacrificed my Slovak mushroom-and-barley soup and sauerkraut for my husband’s traditional Seven Fishes, “simplified” to a single, rich, saffron-scented pasta sauce with shrimp, clams, calamari, mussels, salmon, monkfish, and cod.
But I set the table the way my baba, my grandmother, did.
In the middle is the Advent wreath, all four candles burning down now, symbolizing the light to come. The tablecloth is white, and there’s always a piece of straw from the Nativity scene at church to represent the manger. (Our older son was very distressed the year our church swapped out the traditional hay for pine straw.) In the center of each plate is a dollop of honey and an oplatki wafer, thin unleavened bread similar to communion wafers, stamped with pictures of the Holy Family. There’s one pink one, which goes to my husband as head of the family. Yes, we get all traditional on Christmas Eve. I go around the table making the sign of the cross on the children’s foreheads, blessing them from youngest to oldest for the coming year, exchanging kisses. Then I bless my husband, and he blesses me, which involves more kisses and getting honey in my hair.
Even though the five of us fit comfortably around the kitchen table, this meal we eat in the dining room. A special place. Sacred space.
No surprise that the importance of the family meal, the symbolism of the family table, shows up when I’m writing about the Fletchers of Dare Island. Here’s an excerpt from Carolina Home to give you a “taste.”
~Virginia Kantra
*****
“Thank you. I had a good time,” Allison said as Matt walked her away from the inn down the garden path. She carried her wet clothes in a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag over one arm, leftovers in another, the recipe for lasagna al forno tucked into her purse next to her blinking cell phone. A quick glance at the display revealed her mother had called.
No doubt with a full report on Johnny-the-divorced-anesthesiologist. Allison pushed the thought away.
Matt slanted a look at her. “You sound surprised.”
She collected herself to smile at him. “Sunday dinners have never been the highlight of my week,” she said lightly.
“Sundays can be tough,” he said, “without family and friends around.”
She appreciated his attempt at comfort. She didn’t need it, but it was . . . nice. He was a nice man with a really lovely family. Which made her own rather strained relationship with her parents seem even more pathetic.
“Usually I just grab a sandwich or something. I have papers to grade. Lesson plans to write. Honestly, I prefer it that way.”
“You don’t miss your mother’s cooking?”
Her mother’s staff had Sunday afternoons off. To be with their families, Allison realized now.
“My mother doesn’t cook. Sunday dinners are always at the club,” she said.
A memory slapped her of hard white rolls and smooth white tablecloths, of sitting on her best behavior next to Miles, miserable in the jacket and tie required by the dining room.
She made herself joke. “At least now my parents can’t send me to wait in the car when I screw up.”
Matt took the grocery bags from her and set them on the grass.
She frowned, confused and resisting. “What are you . . . ?”
Putting his arms around her, he pulled her against his chest. His unexpected gentleness made her want to weep.
She closed her eyes instead.
“You were supposed to have dinner with them today,” he said. “They wanted you to drive home for the weekend to meet some guy.”
She nodded against his shirt, surprised all over again by his ability to listen. To remember.
“They want parental bragging rights,” she explained. “They don’t like my job, they’re disappointed in my friends, they think I’ve wasted my opportunities. The least I can do, in their minds, is provide them with a big society wedding and a son-in-law they can talk about to their acquaintances.”
“They want the best for you,” Matt said.
“By their standards, maybe. Ever since I graduated from college, they’ve been trying to fix me up with the kind of man they think I should want.” She raised her head from her chest, shaking herself out of her funk. “As long as he’s a high status white male with an investment portfolio, a penis, and a pulse, he’s good enough for their daughter. Every time I go home, dinner turns into this bizarre ritual, a cross between an arranged marriage and a job interview.”
Matt laughed. “Most parents want to see their children married and settled.”
She smiled, relieved to return to firmer emotional footing. “Yes, but yours are more subtle.”
“I think they’ve just given up.”
Right. Because he didn’t do long-term relationships. The thought was vaguely depressing. She took a step back, finger-combing her hair.
Matt picked up the grocery bags. “Anyway, they approve of you.”
“Mm.” She shot him a sly look. “Your father thinks I’m a good catch.”
A slight flush stained his cheekbones. “You heard that?”
“I’m a teacher. I hear everything.”
Hooked, Tom Fletcher had said. The prospect left her oddly breathless.
Of course, their parents’ generation thought that way.
Allison wasn’t trolling for some trophy husband to stuff and mount over her fireplace.
“My mother always claimed to have selective hearing,” Matt said. “That way she could pretend not to hear Luke and me when we bitched about doing chores.”
“Your mother is a wise woman.”
“She likes you. She doesn’t give her family recipes to just anybody.”
Allison’s heart gave a happy little hop. “Too bad I get my cooking skills from my mother.”
“It’s not that hard.”
She tilted her head. “You cook?”
He smiled his lazy smile. “I learned to, for Josh. I can manage more than peanut butter sandwiches and scrambled eggs, anyway.”
There was no one in Allison’s life to cook for. To care for. But she didn’t have to be defined by her family. Isn’t that what she’d come to Dare Island to prove?
“I guess if I can read, I can follow a recipe. I’m up for trying new things.”
“Good.” He stopped under the blooming crepe myrtle. Took her by the shoulders and drew her in. “Try this.”
He kissed her.
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New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra credits her love for strong heroes and courageous heroines to a childhood spent devouring fairy tales. Virginia is the author of more than twenty books of contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense. Her stories have earned numerous awards including Romance Writers of America's RITA Award, eight RITA nominations, and two National Readers' Choice Awards. Her work includes the popular Children of the Sea series and, in e-book format, the Sweet Home, Carolina stories. In July 2012 look for Carolina Home, the first book in her new Dare Island novels.
Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of three kids, Virginia lives in North Carolina. She is a firm believer in the strength of family, the importance of storytelling, and the power of love.
Her favorite thing to make for dinner? Reservations.
Her favorite thing to make for dinner? Reservations.
So, tell me: kitchen or dining room? Do you have any special foods/traditions connected with the holidays? What’s your favorite thing to make or eat?
Leave a comment to be entered to win a SIGNED copy of Carolina Home...just in time for holiday reading!
