Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting - Various

Title: Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting
Author: Various
Genre: Essays
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~6hrs
Date read: April 2014

Why does knitting occupy a place in the hearts of so many writers? What’s so magical and transformative about yarn and needles? How does knitting help us get through life-changing events and inspire joy? In Knitting Yarns, twenty-seven writers tell stories about how knitting healed, challenged, or helped them to grow. Barbara Kingsolver describes sheering a sheep for yarn. Elizabeth Berg writes about her frustration at failing to knit. Ann Patchett traces her life through her knitting, writing about the scarf that knits together the women she’s loved and lost. Knitting a Christmas gift for his blind aunt helped Andre Dubus III knit an understanding with his girlfriend. Kaylie Jones finds the woman who used knitting to help raise her in France and heals old wounds. Sue Grafton writes about her passion for knitting. Also included are five original knitting patterns created by Helen Bingham.

Various authors write about their experiences with knitting. I didn't know many of the others, but it turned out not really to matter. Some of the essays were sweet and endearing, others left me totally cold... so pretty much like any other essay collection I guess ;) I wasn't quite as enamoured with the collection as I had hoped to be - my expectations had been set too high by the Yarn Harlot's essays - but there were enough good ones included that I wasn't left disappointed by the collection as a whole.

Laced with Magic - Barbara Bretton

Title: Laced with Magic (Sugar Maple #2)
Author: Barbara Bretton
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: 327
Date read: April 2014

Knit shop owner and sorcerer's daughter Chloe Hobbs felt the Fates finally got it right when she met Luke MacKenzie. And no one could have convinced her otherwise-including the trolls, selkies, or spirits who also call Sugar Maple, Vermont, home. But then out of nowhere Luke's ex-wife suddenly shows up, claiming to see the spirit of their daughter, Steffie-a daughter Chloe knows nothing about.

Steffie's spirit is being held hostage by a certain Fae leader. And if Chloe weaves a spell to free her spirit, her nemesis will also be free-free to destroy her yarn shop and all of Sugar Maple. But if she doesn't, Steffie won't be the only one spending eternity in hell. Chloe'll be joining her, cursed with a broken heart.

About half way through the book it looked as if I would end up giving it two stars at best. A horrible disappointment after I had enjoyed the first book so much. But fortunately Barbara Bretton managed to redeem herself in the second half, and in the end she regained my trust and at least almost lived up to my expectations. So after thinking I might not finish the book at all, I now find myself considering continuing with the series after all.

But the first half was absolutely ripe with foreshadowing - one of my hugest pet peeves in books. At page 111 I was disgusted enough with the entire thing that I considered just giving up on the book altogether. Fortunately I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and not only did the main characters not run quite as straight-forwardly into a brick wall as I had feared, but there was only one more incident of foreshadowing in the rest of the book. Still, the extreme use of the feature in the first half subtracted a full star off my rating.

I'm not sure I buy into Luke and Chloe's relationship any longer, and there were quite a number of plotholes here and there, but I absolutely adored Karen and her weird friendship with Chloe, and am sad we won't get to see her again.

Even the cliff-hanger at the end of the book was decent enough that it only subtracted half a star rather than the full star it would usually do.