Donna Kauffman & SNOWFLAKE BAY

Hello and thanks for stopping by!  I’m presently on “blog tour” for my latest Brides of Blueberry Cove release, SNOWFLAKE BAY, and want to thank Miss Ivy for having me as a guest blogger today!   The hero in my latest Blueberry Cove book, Ben Campbell, owns and operates his family’s Christmas tree farm in Snowflake Bay, Maine.  Bringing the Campbell Christmas Tree Farm to life was so much fun and something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  When I was a teenager, my family bought our first horse farm, which, it turned out, had previously been a Christmas tree farm.  It was winter when we moved in, and we intended to clear the near fields to be used for horse paddocks and stables once warmer weather (and softer ground) rolled around in the spring.  But Christmas happened first.  Actually, Thanksgiving is when it began.  We woke up Thanksgiving weekend that first year to find a line of cars and trucks trundling down our long gravel driveway, filled with families looking to buy their annual family Christmas tree.  We couldn’t turn them away—and, well, we needed to get rid of the trees anyway—so…we became Christmas tree farmers!  There were so many families who had been coming out there for years, we ended up grooming the trees that could be groomed and we stayed in the Christmas tree business for a number of years (while simultaneously getting into the horse breeding business.) We even added hayrides, and my sisters and I provided hot apple cider and hot chocolate.  It made our holiday season that much more exciting and it was so much fun to incorporate some of those wonderful memories into SNOWFLAKE BAY. If you celebrate Christmas, do you and your family cut down your own tree?   Do you have any holiday tree chopping traditions?  I’d love to hear about them!

BACK COVER:

There’s no place like seaside Blueberry Cove, Maine, at Christmas—and there’s nothing like a wedding, the warmth of the holidays, and an old crush, to create the perfect new start…

Interior designer Fiona McCrae has left fast-paced Manhattan to move back home to peaceful Blueberry Cove. But she’s barely arrived before she’s hooked into planning her big sister Hannah’s Christmas wedding—in less than seven weeks. The last thing she needs is for her first love, Ben Campbell, to return to neighboring Snowflake Bay…

As kids, Fiona was the bratty little sister Ben mercilessly teased—while pining after Hannah. But Fi never once thought of Ben like a brother. And that hasn’t changed. Except Fi is all grown up. Will Ben notice her now?  More importantly, with her life in a jumble, should he? Or might the romance of the occasion, the spirit of the season, and the gifts of time ignite a long-held flame for many Christmases to come…

Something old might just become something new…

Includes a DIY wedding project!

“Kauffman’s stories show that the bravery to reach for a connection is all we need to discover joy.”  –Publishers Weekly on Sandpiper Island

USA Today bestselling author of the Bachelors of Blueberry Cove series, DONNA KAUFFMAN has been gratified to see her books get rave reviews in venues ranging from Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal to Entertainment Weekly and Cosmopolitan. She lives in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains in western Virginia, where she is presently applying her crafty DIY skills to decorating her new mountainside abode. Well, when she isn’t busy trying to keep the bears from hanging out in her flower and vegetable garden all day and night!  With her new Brides of Blueberry Cove series, Donna’s been having a blast applying those same restoration and design skills to doing some fictional wedding planning. Of course, if that means haunting all those lovely antique shops and flea markets that are so plentiful in her new neck of the woods, well, it’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make. When she’s not finding ways to take her love of all things rustic and vintage and give them a fabulous seaside, coastal Maine wedding party twist, she loves to hear from readers!  You can contact her through her website at www.donnakauffman.com.