Making Muckles Out of Mickles or Why Mira is reissuing the Shenandoah Album Novels
What are Muckles and Mickles you say and what in the world do they have to do with Emilie’s novels?
What, have you no Scots blood–as do many people in the Shenandoah Valley? ”Many a mickle makes a muckle,” means that if you carefully accumulate many little things, you’ll end up with something larger and better. And truthfully, I found this smile-worthy expression on the internet, not in an old family diary from my distant Ross family ancestors, but do we care?
So what do mickles and muckles have to do with the reissuing of the first three novels in my Shenandoah Album series? Well, you see, the letters and emails you sent my publisher asking for more books in the series are the mickles, and they seem to have created a muckle (not to be confused with muggles, because I am not J.K. Rowling.). We haven’t quite achieved lift-off on a new addition to the series, but the fact that the first three books are coming out in new and exciting trade paperback editions is, quite probably, due to all that mail.
Now, nobody’s told me this is why, but that’s not the kind of thing they WOULD tell me. Publishers keep secrets almost as well as politicians do. Still, Wedding Ring, Endless Chain, and Lover’s Knot with their lovely new covers, lovelier larger print, and loveliest price yet, ($7.99 at Amazon, for example) are a joy and a step in the right direction.
Do you remember how the Shenandoah Album series got its start? I was writing all the time and had very little time to quilt. One day it occurred to me that at the very least, if I couldn’t find time to finish the quilt in progress, at least I could write about quilts, quilters and quilting. I decided to write a novel that used a vintage Wedding Ring quilt as a way to bring three generations of women together. And since it was a Wedding Ring quilt, clearly the theme had to be marriage.
Intrigued? I hope so, because I am so proud of this book and the four that followed, just as I’m proud of you for making your wishes known.
Wedding Ring comes out at the end of this month, Endless Chain in April, Lover’s Knot in May. I hope you’ll buy and read them, if you haven’t already, or choose one or all as a gift for a friend. They’ll make perfect Secret Santa gifts to stow away for Christmas, or thank you gifts for a friend who loves to read.
Do you have to like quilts to enjoy this series? Quilts bind the books together in one way or another, but these, like all my stories, are really about the lives of women. Wedding Ring is about mothers and daughters, about growing old, about the different stages of marriage, about overcoming grief, about finding love when you had expected never to find it again.
I hope enough people will find the reissues and buy them that my publisher’s ears will perk up as they did at your mail. Perky-eared publishers are the best kind. And there’s at least one more book to add to this series.
If you are so inclined you can preorder Wedding Ring at:
