Allie Pleiter's BLUEGRASS CHRISTMAS

Okay, so it's forcing the season a bit to be discussing Christmas before I've bought my first kernel of candy corn, but humor me.

I've been thinking about how stories are born. Near as I can tell, to write a really good story, you need to ask a really good question. The best questions are the ones we all ask--especially the ones we think no one else asks.

The deepest questions are timeless, too. People have been asking “will he love the real me?” for centuries. For as long as there have been secrets--which would be, well, forever--there have been folks who fear what will happen when those secrets come to light. The deceptive thing about those secrets is how big we make them. Notice I didn’t say “how big they are,” but “how big we make them.” Secrets magnify and multiply until we’re sure the world will run out of town once they know the ugly truth. Trouble is, we’ve all got ugly truths, and nine times out of ten we’re too busy oogling at our own to make too much of a fuss over someone else’s.

My latest book, Bluegrass Christmas, is about how crazy the holidays get. But it’s also about the size of secrets. Mary has a secret she thinks is huge, but in reality, it’s not. Mac, on the other hand, has been fooling himself for years that his secret is insignificant. Add some romance, a little holiday drama that refuses to stay little, and things get out of hand. The good news is that no matter how far things get out of hand, our faults never outpace God’s grace. Mac and Mary learn that the true spirit of Christmas can always overcome the ridiculous ways we mess up the holiday.

Drop on by www.alliepleiter.com or my knitting blog destiKNITions.blogspot.com and say hello! And happy pre-holidays to you!