LET'S GET COZY! YARN TO GO: A PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

 
GIVEAWAY ENDED 
YARN TO GO
 A Yarn Retreat Mystery
BY BETTY HECHTMAN

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Dessert chef Casey Feldstein doesn’t know a knitting needle from a crochet hook. But after her aunt dies unexpectedly, leaving Casey to run her yarn retreat business, the sweets baker finds herself rising to the occasion—and trying to unravel a murder mystery...

When Casey finds out that her late aunt’s business, Yarn2Go, has one more yarn retreat scheduled, she decides to go ahead and host the event, despite her complete lack of experience as a knitter. At least the retreat is on the beautiful Monterey Peninsula.

But the idyllic setting is soured when a retreat regular is found murdered in her hotel room. Feeling a sense of responsibility, Casey begins to weave the clues together and detects a pattern which may shed light on her aunt’s suspicious death. Despite the danger, the last thing Casey plans to do is retreat. She’ll catch this killer...or dye trying.

Includes a knitting pattern and a recipe! 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I grew up on the south side of Chicago and in a very busy weekend, got married, graduated college and moved to Los Angeles.

Although my degree is in Fine Arts, all I ever wanted to be was a writer and I've been doing it in one form or another for as long as I can remember. My shining moments in elementary and high school always involved stories or poetry I'd written. I wrote news stories and a weekly column in my college newspaper. My first job out of college was working on the newsletter of a finance company. I worked for a public relations firm and wrote press releases and biographies. Later I wrote proposals for video projects and television shows that went through various stages of development.

I tried writing screenplays and wrote three. I sold one and another was a winner in a Writers' Digest contest.

I was lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom and did all kinds of volunteering at my son's schools including editing and writing several newsletters.

I wrote essays and small pieces that ran in the Los Angeles Times, the Daily News and Woman's Day among others. My short romantic and mystery fiction appeared in Woman's World, and Futures magazine.

My affair with crochet began in Las Vegas. I had always had a fascination with crochet, particularly granny squares, but thought there was some magic involved with making them that was beyond me. And then everything changed that day in Vegas when I saw the kids' kit in FAO Schwartz. If the instructions were easy enough for kids, I thought they might work for me.

My first granny square was missing a corner, but when I tried again, all four corners were there. I was in awe of my own accomplishment. I had found the magic. I went granny square crazy until pretty soon I didn't need directions anymore. Then I learned there were more squares than just basic grannies and I made squares with sunflowers in the middle and other patterns. I moved beyond squares and made flowers, hearts, bookmarks and more.

I was in love with crochet and began to make scarves, purses, afghans, and shawls. I started carrying my hooks everywhere. A plane trip became a pile of granny square wash cloths, or part of a shawl. A vacation in Hawaii turned into a tote bag.

And now I get to write about it. 

AN EXCERPT FROM YARN TO GO:

I was in the middle of laying out the ingredients for my carrot muffins when the call came. It's lucky I hadn't started mixing them, because you can't just run off and abandon muffin batter for an hour and expect it to be okay. I didn't even understand who it was at first. All I heard was something about no refund on a credit card bill, the word retreat and that I "better do something about it."

"Who is this?" I said when the caller finally took a breath.

"Casey, this is Tag Thornkill," an exasperated voice responded. He could have left off the last name. I mean, it's not like I know a bunch of Tags. Immediately my demeanor changed from irritated at the interruption to concerned. Tag is my current employer, or half of the pair, anyway. He and his wife Lucinda own the Blue Door restaurant, which is where I presently work. I'm the dessert chef. Tag doesn't know it, but I also bake muffins for some coffee spots in town using the Blue Door's kitchen. Lucinda had given her okay and saw no problem with the arrangement as long as I brought in my own ingredients.

So every night when the restaurant closes and everyone has left, I come in and bake the restaurant's desserts for the next day, along with batches of muffins for the next day's coffee drinkers.

Let me be clear from the start: I'm not one of those fancy cooking school graduates who does French pastry. TO FINISH READING THIS EXCERPT, VISIT BETTY HECHTMAN'S WEBSITE HERE.

SOME OTHER BOOKS BY BETTY HECHTMAN:

                     

                      

                     

 GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KAYLEIGH AND THE GOOD FOLKS
AT BERKLEY PRIME CRIME AND PENGUIN BOOKS,
I HAVE ONE COPY OF YARN TO GO, 
TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY READER

 
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GIVEAWAY ENDS AT 
6 PM, EST, AUGUST 11

   GOOD LUCK!