Guest Post (and a Giveaway!): Delores Topliff & Christmas Tree Wars

I first connected with today’s guest here on the blog (you’ve no doubt seen her in the comments!) and she has quickly become one of the people who can make me smile when I see an email from her in my inbox. So I’m delighted to have Delores Topliff back on the blog today to share about her new book, Christmas Tree Wars!

CHRISTMAS TREE WARS
GENRE: Inspirational Historical Romance
PUBLISHER: Scrivenings Press LLC
RELEASE DATE: October 5, 2021
PAGES: 199

Christmas is meant to be a time of goodwill, but there’s no peace between two neighboring Christmas tree farmers involved in a longstanding feud. Can this year be different with a bit of holiday romance tossed into the season?

When the financial planner son and forestry major niece of feuding Christmas tree farmers come home to help their families in crisis, it takes Christmas tree wars to a whole new level. As the young people seek success by competing to provide a national Christmas tree, romance fills the air and connects them like mistle to toe.

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by Delores Topliff, author of Christmas Tree Wars

what readers can expect from my book

Christmas is meant to be a time of goodwill, but there’s no peace between two neighboring Christmas tree farmers in a longstanding feud. Can a holiday romance make a difference?

Kris Lundquist, a successful young financial planner working in New York City, comes home to Wisconsin for two weeks to help his Swedish-American Christmas tree grower dad survive financial crisis. While there, he gets re-acquainted with Marcie Halvorsen, the forestry-major niece of their cranky Norwegian neighbor who also needs help with farm finances. The young people compete in contests to provide a national Christmas tree to build sales. Despite their relationship being as star-crossed as Romeo and Juliet’s, they fall in love and help their families and town rediscover the reason for the season.

This was a fun story to write and I suspect will stay one of my favorites! For me the best part is the Epilogue when the two feuding codgers reach an understanding and partner in thinking up future adventures and trouble to get into together!

little-known facts about me

I’ve worked summers for US and Canadian Forest Services—including pine-cone seed collection, time in seedling nurseries, etc. I’ve loved those experiences which have included helicopter and small fixed-wing aircraft flights over gorgeous, forested areas in both countries.

During my spring and summer months in Minnesota, I check on and care for eight Scottish Highland cows and calves named after Scottish Hebrides islands to help my grandchildren learn world geography. That’s me staying fit filling water troughs and doing hay pitching aerobics!

During one of eight trips to Israel for research on a college course I teach and where I take small tour/study groups (especially in non-Covid times), I’ve been part of a tree-planting project in Galilee and recently donated the gift of trees planted there to a close friend to honor their deceased family member.

At my literary agent’s suggestion, after my eight lengthy independent trips to Israel, I’ve written Israel on a Budget for all ages, A Traveling Grandma’s Guide to Israel—Plan your trip for around $100 US per day after airfare. To date, this is unpublished. It’s not a good time for international travel, but I hope it finds a publication home soon or I may go Indie.

favorite recipes from the book

Halvor Halvorsen’s Norwegian Potato Lefse and Lars Lundquist’s Christmas Cardamom Ring recipes are given at the end of the book. Both are delicious!

Halvor Halvorsen’s Norwegian Potato Lefse

1 pound potatoes (or 2 cups mashed potatoes)
1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt or more to taste
1 to 1 – 1/2 cups all-purpose flour.

Cover potatoes in water and cook until tender. Mash or press hot potatoes through a potato ricer. Place in a large bowl.

Stir butter, cream, salt, and sugar into the potatoes. Cool to room temperature.

Add flour to the potato mixture.

Pull off small dough pieces to form walnut-size balls.

On a lightly floured counter, bread board, or pastry cloth roll out lefse balls to 1/8” thick.

Cook on a hot griddle (400 degree F or 200 C) until bubbles form and both sides are browned. Cool and serve with any of many popular toppings.

note from Carrie – you’ll have to grab the book to get the Christmas cardamom recipe 😉

Delores Topliff did years of college teaching, traveling, and writing before writing Christian novels. She continues teaching university online dividing her year between snow-bird homes on a farm in central Minnesota and balmier winter temperatures in Northeastern Mississippi where she loves the people and accents. She also loves the magnolia, pear, peach, and bougainvillea trees in her yard there. She brags about her two fine doctor sons and five delightful grandchildren.

Most reviewers awarded her WWII novel, Books Afloat, five-stars and praised its characters and adventures. She’s writing two more books in that series. Meanwhile, Scrivenings Press will release her next book, Wilderness Wife, a North American Frontier Historical in spring, 2022.

Christmas Tree Wars and Books Afloat are available on Amazon and other sites to order in print or Kindle e-Book.

Visit Delores’s website delorestopliff.com to consider her published children’s books and other publications and sign up for her blog posts on every 2^nd Tuesday.

Connect with her on Facebook at Delores Topliff Books.

Delores Topliff is offering an ebook copy of Christmas Tree Wars to one of my readers! (US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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What about you? What makes you want to read Christmas Tree Wars by Delores Topliff?