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Saturday, November 24, 2018

An Entangled Winter Wonderland Event with Barbara White Daille


Barbara White Daille lives with her husband in the sunny Southwest. Though they love the warm winters and the lizards in their front yard, they haven’t gotten used to the scorpions in the bathroom. Barbara also loves writing, reading, and chocolate. Come to think of it, she enjoys writing about those subjects, too!

Barbara wrote her first short story at the age of nine, then typed "The End" to her first novel many years later...in the eighth grade. Now she's writing contemporary romance on a daily basis. Sign up for her newsletter to keep up with the latest in her writing life: https://barbarawhitedaille.com/newsletter.


Happy Hallothanksmas!

’Tis the season, you know. :)

In case you’re not familiar with the word, Hallothanksmas represents the retail shopping period beginning at Halloween and extending (even though the word ends in “mas”) through New Year’s.

Well, yeah, I love a good Black Friday sale as much as anyone. And holiday gifts rank high on my list for Santa.

But I have to confess, at the first sight of that phrase, Happy Hallothanksmas, my thoughts turned to food.

When I was growing up, our house was Holiday Central. At dinnertime on most holidays, you couldn’t fit another person in the dining room. The main table was reserved for the adults, including my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. We also had multiple smaller tables set up to handle the overflow crowd of cousins—meaning all the kids. (Those adults were no dummies! LOL)

As much as I loved giving and getting presents, many of my memories of the holidays revolve around food.

And today it’s more of the same.

For me the turkey and trimmings, the green-bean casserole and sweet potatoes, the cranberry sauce, and the desserts—especially the desserts—are definitely among the best treats the holidays have to offer.

On the desserts, it doesn’t help that I’m a chocoholic. In fact, in my world, Hallothanksmas goes beyond even New Year’s to include Valentine’s Day.

Happy Hallothanksmastine, anyone? :)

Below, I’ll share a tiny clip from my first Snowflake Valley book, Snowbound with Mr. Wrong, in which my characters tend to think along the same lines I do. But first, so you’ll get to know who’s who. . .

This is from the back cover of the book:

Worst. Day. Ever. After Lyssa Barnett’s sister tricks her into reprising her role at Snowflake Valley's annual children's party, she doesn’t think anything can be worse than squeezing into her too-small elf costume. Then tall, dark, and way too handsome Nick Tavlock shows up to play Santa…and an unexpected storm leaves them snowbound in the isolated lodge.

The last thing Nick wants is to spend a cozy Christmas Eve with a trio of kids and the woman who dumped him. But as much as Lyssa frustrates him, he can't stop thinking about her. And soon, he's fighting very un-Santa-like thoughts of kissing a certain sexy Miss Elf under the mistletoe. As Nick starts to fall for Lyssa all over again, he knows it will take nothing short of a miracle to have Lyssa in his arms on Christmas Day.

And here’s your excerpt:

“Supper first,” Mollie said firmly. She slipped into the vacant chair between Nick and Tommy, leaving another empty chair on the opposite side of the table between Nick and Brent.

It would have looked rude—if not outright odd—for Lyssa to sit at the far side of one of the boys, away from Nick, and leave such an obvious gap in their seating arrangement. But, oh, she wished she could sit even farther away from him. . . like, in another room.

Reluctantly, she headed toward the vacant chair.

“I think Mollie’s right, kid,” Nick told Tommy. “You wouldn’t want to fill up on just sweets, would you?”

All three children looked at him in disbelief. Even Lyssa came to an abrupt halt again, thinking about the many lovely, luscious, sugary concoctions that had helped make her elf costume so tight.

Judging by Nick’s rueful expression, he realized he hadn’t scored with that approach at all.



Worst. Day. Ever. After Lyssa Barnett’s sister tricks her into reprising her role at Snowflake Valley's annual children's party, she doesn’t think anything can be worse than squeezing into her too-small elf costume. Then tall, dark, and way too handsome Nick Tavlock shows up to play Santa…and an unexpected storm leaves them snowbound in the isolated lodge.

The last thing Nick wants is to spend a cozy Christmas Eve with a trio of kids and the woman who dumped him. But as much as Lyssa frustrates him, he can't stop thinking about her. And soon, he's fighting very un-Santa-like thoughts of kissing a certain sexy Miss Elf under the mistletoe. As Nick starts to fall for Lyssa all over again, he knows it will take nothing short of a miracle to have Lyssa in his arms on Christmas Day.

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Good Luck!

12 comments :

  1. Thanks for sharing my book during this event!

    Readers - hope you had a great Thanksgiving if you celebrated it. I'd love to hear your favorite part of any of the holidays.

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  2. This sounds cute! My favorite at Thanksgiving is the homemade chocolate pie with bananas that I have for breakfast the next day!

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    1. Sue - that works for me. :) My fave Thanksgiving dessert is chocolate pudding pie.

      Glad you liked the excerpt. Thanks for commenting!

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  3. My favorite part of the holidays is driving around the neighborhood, after Christmas Eve dinner, looking at the holiday lights, then opening gifts with the Yule Log playing in the background.

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    1. Joanne - that sounds like a great holiday tradition, and such fun. Some people really go all out with the decorations and the displays are AMAZING!

      Thanks for sharing.

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  4. I love the giving to others that so many do. Love to be together with family and watch the children delight in the holiday

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    1. It is so much fun watching the kids, isn't it, Lori? Especially the youngest ones, who are sometimes more excited over the boxes and wrapping paper than they are over the gifts. :)

      And yes, I also love the spirit of giving, from Thanksgiving on through all the holidays.

      Thank you for taking the time to comment!

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  5. Thanks! For the excerpt!
    I definitely agree! Family and food carries our most fondest memories.
    This year was a bit different for my fam though... I was just released from the hospital 2 weeks ago. A had acute c
    Pancreatitis, again. YEs, I said again. I've had it a total of 8x.

    So, I'm on a super super restricted diet again. I had to make everything super low fat... Which wasn't that hard... But I couldn't load up my plate and I couldn't have biscuits 😩. But truthfully i was just happy to be home.

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  6. Lilah - I'm so sorry to hear that. And 8 times - that's awful. It sounds like you knew just what to do about the diet, though. Congratulations for being so good about getting on it right away. Hugs about the biscuits. They're not my absolute favorites considering everything else at the meal, but I do love them, too.

    So glad you're home again. Stay well!

    And you're very welcome for the excerpt - I hope you enjoyed it.

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  7. Thanks so much, D - I'm glad you enjoyed it!

    Sorry for the delayed response. I had trouble with my Blogger account and comment notifications.

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