Monday, August 31, 2020

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: For the Love of Fiber by Kate Bowman @ERomNews #Giveaway #LFPrism @PrismBookTours #WomensFiction

 

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

The Spin I'm In
(For the Love of Fiber #1)
By Kate Bowman
Women's Fiction, Romance
Paperback & ebook, 293 Pages
August 26, 2019

A determined widow faces the challenge of a new life to regain the confidence and independence of her youth, but finds that life, unlike knitting, doesn’t always follow a pattern.

After twenty-five years of being the perfect wife and mother, Martha LeBeau finds herself unexpectedly widowed and shocked to discover her husband had been living a double life, leaving her penniless and in debt. Determined to regain her lost confidence and independence, she sells her suburban Chicago home and moves to the Wisconsin countryside to forge a new life away from cheating men and smothering children. There she meets the Wool Gatherers, a group of fiber artists who teach her the art of spinning wool and raising sheep. Along with one determined Border Collie, she begins on the path to self-growth and healing.

Riley O’Connor is the single father of a child with Asperger Syndrome. The child’s mother walked out on them because she found that life too difficult to handle. Since then, he has dedicated himself to protecting his son from any further emotional damage.

Meeting Riley and his son through her new job brings love and challenges to Martha’s newly found independence. Romance blooms like a finely knit cable, entwining their lives.

Can either of them learn to trust again?

(Affiliate links included.)


We wandered through the craft section first.

It seemed Carol knew everyone, and everyone knew her. Before we’d covered half of the booths, I’d been introduced to at least a dozen people, vendors and customers, and even saw a few faces familiar to me.

Joan was there, manning a booth with her spinning wheel at her side. I was amazed at the progress she’d made with her physical therapy. She swore it was due to her determination not to give up on spinning and knitting.

“What’s that you’re spinning?” I asked.

A mound of mocha-colored fiber lay in her basket, and I reached down to touch it. It slid through my fingers like a buttery, soft web.

“It’s a blend of alpaca and silk,” she said. “I saw a knitting pattern for an open-weave summer sweater that I think will work up really well with this yarn.”

“It’s beautiful.” Suddenly, I had the urge to get home and practice my spinning. I’d improved quite a bit in the past few weeks and didn’t get nearly as frustrated. Saturday night wouldn’t be lonely with a good movie to watch, a glass of wine to sip, and my spinning wheel. And, of course, Maeve would make sure I didn’t get bored.

We wandered through several more booths, the air rich with the scent of herbal soaps and lotions—invigorating basil, relaxing lavender, and the overwhelming patchouli. I knew Suze and Lexie would appreciate the handmade soaps and lotions, so I purchased a few.

The mohair scarf and matching beret I decided on for Brooke were the same blue as the clear sky of an Indian summer day. Even she couldn’t help but love it. It would bring out the blue color of her eyes.

Our next stop was at a spinning booth, and I immediately gravitated to a ball of red-orange mohair roving. It looked like a cloud at sunset, and I had to have it. I’d save it until my spinning improved enough to do it justice, but already I envisioned wearing the knit cardigan.

There were felt hats and purses, which Carol assured me I could easily produce, next to skeins of every color handspun yarn you could imagine. The idea that I could possibly create my own unique gifts by this time next year ran tantalizingly through my mind.

“All you need is time and the willingness to learn. We’ll have a wool dying and felting day in the spring. It’s a blast,” Carol said.

“I’m hungry.” The aroma of a rich chicken booyah, a local soup made famous by the early Belgian settlers, wafted through the room, mixed with the savory smell of frying hamburgers and brats. All the fragrances of food that bring comfort to the soul and fat to the hips.

Carol looked down at her watch. “It’ll have to wait. Hurry, we’d better get to the shearing pen before all the good spots are gone. He’s gonna start shearing in ten minutes.”

I’d never seen Carol move so fast in the months I’d known her. The he she talked about had to be the notorious Riley, causer of palpitating hearts among women old enough to know better.

I laughed as she pulled me behind her like a recalcitrant child. I was a little embarrassed on her behalf. How could she act that silly over a good-looking man? I’d been immune for years.

Carol managed to get us close to the pen, even though she had to push her way through throngs of women and children to do it. The shearer had his back to us, so all I could see was a head of thick black hair streaked with gray and a slim figure. As I watched, strong, muscular arms caught a sheep and expertly flipped her onto her back before the creature even knew what happened. With a fluid motion, he picked up his electric shears and began shearing off her wool as she went into a trance.

It was like watching the horse whisperer. When he turned her back upright, the ewe stayed still until he finished and didn’t even seem to want to move when she was free. He gave her a little slap on the rump, and she finally ran off. A woman swooped in then and removed the shorn fleece. I watched, fascinated, as he repeated the same procedure with a second sheep.

 



It Never Felt So Good
(For the Love of Fiber #2)
By Kate Bowman
Women's Fiction, Romance
Paperback & ebook, 268 Pages
May 9, 2020

Cara Olson is forced to put aside her struggling art career in Chicago to care for her ailing grandmother in Wisconsin. While journeying with her beloved Gram through the diagnosis of possible Alzheimer’s disease, she loses and then rediscovers her passion for art and experiences the resurrection of a past love.

Struggling artist Cara Olson is called home to Wisconsin to care for her ailing grandmother who is showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Leaving behind her mentor//boyfriend, Stefan, she begins to look at her unsuccessful career and relationship in a new light.

Surprised to find her Gram’s doctor is her high-school crush, Peter Andreson, she fights her reignited feelings. When Chicago critics dismiss her artwork as a poor imitation of Stefan’s, she is devastated and vows to give up art.

While caring for Gram and running her small Scandinavian gift shop, the Wool Gatherers, a local group of fiber artists, help her find new outlets for her creativity, designing works of art with hand-made felt and her re-emerging love of landscape and portrait painting.

Along the way, her feelings for Peter grow, and she realizes she has once again fallen for a man only dedicated to his career. When the opportunity arises for her to return to Chicago with the promise of a new career, she seizes it. But even her success can’t fill the void she experiences without Gram, her new friends, and Peter.

Can she return to Shoreview, the place that inspires her art, and be satisfied with a life that doesn’t include him?

(Affiliate link included.)

About the Author


Born in Wisconsin to an original Brady Bunch, I had the dubious honor of being #14 in the family. As a result, I’ll never run out of characters. The early years of my marriage were spent moving around the country with my engineer husband, collecting interesting stories and characters along the way. I picked up my first romance after a particularly stressful shift at a suburban Chicago hospital where I worked as an RN. Hours later, bleary-eyed and exhausted, but able to sleep because the story affirmed that good things can happen to good people, I was hooked.

After seventeen years in the Chicago suburbs we returned to Wisconsin and a new life of country living. After a local class in spinning, I decided it would be fun to have my own source of wool. Several years and many animals later, I found a new source of humor for my stories. I’ve always loved animals and you’ll find many of them populate my books. My stories are about real people trying to make it in this crazy, sometimes funny, sometimes sad world—but always with an ending that will renew your faith in love and life.

When I’m not writing, you’ll find me with my family or out walking in my fields, spinning wool, knitting or weaving, but always listening to the interesting stories of those characters living in my head.

For more information about me and my books, visit www.KateBowmanAuthor.com.


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1 comment:

bn100 said...

nice excerpt