Guest Post and Giveaway: Grace Burrowes

Please join me in welcoming Grace Burrowes to Debbie's Book Bag today! Grace has a guest post in honor of the Christmas season. Grace's Christmas themed book, Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish is available now and the publisher is sponsoring a giveaway. See details at the of the post.

One of the sweetest memories I own comes from the holiday season. I was a single mom raising my daughter in rural Maryland. Our house is a Civil War vintage log cabin with additions (indoor cooking came before indoor plumbing) and I still heat it mostly with wood.

Beloved Offspring was not quite school age, a busy, vulnerable time in life when the heart should still be innocent and the imagination Herculean. We’d had a tiring day, it was cold out, and our upstairs was by no means as warm as the downstairs. Story time happened downstairs are a result, and this particular night we decided to repair to the bentwood rocker in the living room for this most important aspect of the bedtime ritual.

Before we picked out a story, we both got into our jammies and slippers. The floor in my house is tongue-and-groove yellow pine over a dirt basement—slippers or thick socks are mandatory in colder weather.

Another non-negotiable aspect of the routine was that we would be joined by Favorite (short for Favorite Blankie) a ragged old receiving blanket whose blanket binding had been restitched all around more than once. We assembled—my daughter, me, Favorite, a story book, and maybe an ambitious house cat—in the rocking chair.

I forget the story, I forget which cats we had underfoot at the time, I forget what day of the week it was, but I do remember finishing the story—Goodnight Moon was a perennial favorite, as was as an odd little book called The Very Best Home for Me. Maybe we read The Runaway Bunny or How Soccer Saved Easter. All four fell into the “Mom doesn’t dare skip a single word” category.

I read with my daughter curled up on my lap swaddled in her Favorite Blankie, the same as I’d read to her on many other occasions. When I finished the story, she didn’t hop down—the words had performed their magic—but instead stayed drowsing on my lap.

“I like it when we read in the rocking chair,” she announced.

“Why is that?”

“Because when we’re in the rocking chair, I feel safe and warm and happy.”

THAT is what I wish for my loved ones, my readers, and my characters this Christmas and every day, that they feel safe and warm and happy. Financial woes come and go, health can get dodgy, worldly standing is undependable, but that feeling of being securely loved and lovable, that is beyond price and it makes every other challenge in this life bearable.

So for Christmas, I wish you a place where you can be safe and warm and happy—at least between the pages of a good book, but also with your friends and family. They are the best Favorite Blankie, the best storytellers, the best happily ever after I could wish anybody.

Happy Holidays!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

The publisher is sponsoring a giveaway for two copies of Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish by Grace Burrowes.

~ You must be a Google Friend Connect follower to participate.
~ US and Canadian Addresses only (Publisher Request).
~ The deadline to enter this giveaway is Midnight EST December 12th.


1. Please leave a comment for Grace or a special Christmas memory in the comments.
2. Please fill out the FORM.