Inez Kelley contacted me about doing a giveaway for her new series that's set in West Virginia. I reviewed Take Me Home in December, and am looking forward to the next few books, in part because of the setting, which is unique – and a place with which I'm pretty familiar.
After my review, a few other folks tried the book, including Tessa Dare, who said, “Never has maple syrup sex more honestly earned its place in a romance novel.”
Aw, yeah.
Kelley says that all the Country Roads series are homesick therapy for her – so she wants to give everyone a taste of West Virginia, her home state.
Ready for some fun?
Here's our prize:
- A quart bottle of maple syrup from Valley Farms Maple Syrup Company
- 1 ‘My <3 belongs to a lumberjack’ necklace
- 1 WV State park motif coffee mug
- 1 Bottle WV Ramp Dressing
- 1 WV made Cinnamon Bun scented candle
- Digi-copies of Take Me Home #1 and The Place I Belong #2 with a promised delivery of Should've Been Home Yesterday, #3 pre-release – in other words, the entire Country Roads series.
Says Inez: “The maple syrup was made in Preston County, WV, by Valley Farms Maple Syrup Company. My father in law's company — he made it. He is also in the timber industry, as is my husband. There is no web link yet but I *WILL* drag that man into the 21st century before long. They are the largest privately owned maple-syrup producer in WV, tapping over 700 acres. Last season, they harvested more than 55,000 gallons of sap to get over 1,100 refined gallons of organic syrup. This season looks to be even better.”
Second place winners will each get digital copies of Take Me Home (Country Roads 1) and The Place I Belong (Country Roads 2).
Ready to enter?
Just leave a comment, tell us what place is your home, where you're “from,” and what you love about it. It doesn't have to be the place where you were born or where you lived. Tell us about the place you think of as “home.”
Comments will close at noon Wednesday 29 January at noon eastern, and I'll select the winners at random that afternoon.
Standard disclaimers apply: void where prohibited. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and fond of trees to enter. No computers were harmed during the creation of this entry, though several billion electrons were asked to dance in order to ensure its delivery to your marvelous screen. If you've enjoyed these disclaimers half as much as we've enjoyed making them, then we've enjoyed making them twice as much as you've enjoyed reading them.
I asked Inez about West Virginia and why she loves it, and she said,
Yes, WV born and bred. I didn't even leave my home state when it was time for college. Since then, I've lived elsewhere in the nation but always returned to WV, living in various parts of the state. She is my Mountain Mama. I don't care that there are taller peaks, sharper inclines, or higher altitudes, the mountain vistas of WV are special to me. They really do seem to wrap around me like a hug and make me feel at home, protected and safe.
Favorite place? The Potomac Highlands, which will mean nothing to anyone except those who live there. It is, to me, Almost Heaven. (Yes, I went there and embraced the cheesiness of that phrase)
As for me, I'm from Pittsburgh. I was born and raised there, and I didn't leave until I went to college. It wasn't until I traveled a lot and realized how distinct and unique various part of the US are from one another that I could identify what makes Pittsburgh so special.
But I completely understand Inez's feelings for West Virginia, since I worked for several years at a summer camp in Morgantown, in northern WV, and have such wonderful (and weird – it was camp, after all) memories there.
West Virginia's been in the news lately, though not as much as I would think, given that a chemical spill in the Elk River poisoned the drinking water for more than 300,000 people, closing businesses, schools, and leaving people trying to find water donation centers in rural areas. Yet another spill was revealed last week.
I went searching for opportunities to help, and there weren't many online donation centers. Inez directed me to the WV VOAD Disaster Relief Fund, ℅ the United Methodist Foundation in Charleston, WV. The concept of home is a lovely one, and I know West Virginia is hurting right now. So, separate from the giveaway, I'm also making a donation to the WV VOAD Relief Fund in honor of Inez Kelley and all of y'all.
I hope you'll share your favorite part of your home with us. Good luck!
Although I loved living in Pittsburgh and would love to move back, that is not home. My. Home is not a place, or is it a set of particular people. Home is a Shabbat song session, whether it is with a bunch of teens at a youth group event, thee preschool, or a bunch of people my own age. Religion isn’t a big part of my life, at least not spiritually, but I feel at home dancing and screaming and singing favourite songs with others who enjoy them as much as I do.
I live in New Jersey (USA) about an hour west of NYC – in the rolling hills of Somerset County in a small colonial town – most people have no idea this type of area exists in NJ – they usually think of the city areas across the rive from NYC. Years ago when in England we drove thru their County of Somerset – the two areas an ocean apart are so similar! I’ve lived here most of my life and don’t plan on moving anytime soon.
I was born in Atlanta, and lived there until my early 20’s. Since then (15 years!), I’ve been home-New Orleans, LA. The relaxed attitude, great food, and wonderful people make sure I never want to leave.
@SB Sarah—Yes it is disheartening to feel that most of the United States either has no idea what is happening in West Virginia (due to limited national news coverage) or just does not care—because it is West Virginia.
My relatives are coping—which is something that West Virginians are used to doing—it is a good thing that fellow West Virginians in unaffected areas have been generous with their help.
Also, just heard on the news that Freedom Industries has now admitted (19 days into the spill) that double the amount of the chemical leaked into the Elk River. At first it was 5,000 gallons, then 7,500 gallons and now they are admitting that it was 10,000 gallons—in addition to the other chemical that leaked that they neglected to tell anyone about until they had to.
One of the worst things is that there is limited information about the toxicity and long term effects of both chemicals—who knows what life will be like for those affected down the road.
Really depressing news—I think I need to go find a good comfort read to pick my mood up.
home to me will always and forever mean Missouri- I have since lived in many places but it has the strongest pull on my heart- I now live in a very arid state and I so miss the greenness, the trees, water, the hills of Missouri- the last time I went back, 3 years ago, I alternated between crying in complete homesickness and being utterly ecstatic at familiar sights and places- all across the state- I’m sure my husband was thrilled….
I grew up an Army brat. The place I lived the longest was the Palm Springs area of CA. I don’t seem to put down roots, or at least deep roots. I love learning new places and new people. After a few years in one place I’m ready to move on again. There is so much in this beautiful country to see and do!!
It is sad. Unfortunately, WV has long been used to the slurs and avoidance from the rest of the country. As Lynn said, within the state, people have given so much of themselves. The local tales of other West Virginians who drove across the state with pick-up loads of bottled water are numerous. School children held a water drive, bringing individual bottles of water into class to donate. People are going without food and medicine and sharing gas money so they can drive 100 miles away and buy water.
In my Country Roads series, I begin each book chapter with a fact. The facts pertain to the story but they also encompass the WV attitude. I want to share one here now.
“West Virginia is considered the southernmost northern state and the northernmost southern state. It is the only state created by carving out territory from another state, without that state’s permission. This exemplifies the state’s independent attitude.”
Home is slower lower Delaware – tourists in the summer, dead in the winter, full of windy back roads and homestyle diners… and where almost all of my family is. 🙂
Raised in Northern Delaware, Live in Central Maryland, But, Northeast Tennessee always feels like home!
Currently, I think of Chicagoland as home. While I was actually born in Cook County Illinios, I was raised in Wisconsin. After college I ended up working in Chicago and lived in the NW burbs. I was there for about 15 years. Awesome memories. Great food. Too much traffic and a very long commute.
I am also very curious as to what WV Ramp Dressing is from the prize package. Is it a type of dressing served at exit ramp diners?
Kelly S. – No, a ramp is a wild leek, similar to a shallot or mild onion. It’s member of the lily family. The smell of fresh ramps can be pungent but the taste is very mild. They grow wild in WV and are the feature of many small town festivals.
My home is my husband, and as long as we are together I feel home.
Secondly, I’m a Jersey girl, through and through, born and bred. Despite the flack Jersey receives, and that I went to college and live in a different state, I will stand by the shore and all the bad jokes about diners and the parkway and the fact that our state vegetable is technically a fruit. When I think of home, I think of the ocean and the horizon.
Home has always been wherever my parents, and now my Mother, happen to be living at the time. At the moment it’s Buderim on The Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia. A little slice of Paradise. We have been holidaying on The Sunshine Coast all my life.
Okay, so, I’m from Vermont, ladies. I mean, I’m REALLY from Vermont, because my dead nineteenth century relatives are buried under quaint slate and granite stones in the churchyard.
I mention this because… hello! Maple Syrup is a Vermont property. We called dibs about 250 years ago. As soon as the days get above freezing and the nights are still freezing, the sap runs. And then you spend the next three days drinking beer while you boil it down. And sometimes the bottle / can return money from your beer drinking is worth more than the syrup when you’re through, and that’s just the way it is.
More importantly, if Maple Syrup sex is a thing, I’m dying a thousand little deaths here, shivering with my cup of coffee in the 12 degree weather wondering why I, of all people, have not had maple syrup sex. So I need to read this book, like, yesterday.
Signing off to stoke up my wood stove (because that’s a thing here in VT too).
S.B.
@Mary – Oh, wow! I was in Buderim last year in August. Friends of ours moved there from the US, and Buderim and the beach down the mountain are so beautiful. Enjoy!!
@Emily – I know just what you mean. When you come over the bridge or roadway to the shore (any of them) and you see the ocean touching the sky, it’s like a big sigh that unwinds me.
It’s odd to say that home is somewhere I’ve never lived. I grew up in Michigan, and still live there, but both of my parents came from southeastern Kentucky. He moved up to Detroit in the 1950s to work in the auto industry, as did my mom’s dad (my dad was 20 years older than my mom). I grew up in a very southern family, surrounded by stories about living in the holler, pictures of the old home place. If you know any Kentuckians in the Detroit area, you know that the culture came with them.
We went to visit regularly. Those mountains mean something to me, a visible symbol of my roots. Michigan is my home in the sense that it’s what I’ve always known, but Kentucky is my home in a deeper sense.
I’m a Navy brat and a Navy wife so I’ve lived all over the country and called lots of places home. But I was born and my family is from Noblesville Indiana. I try to visit every few years since all of my extended family still lives there. My favorite sight is the clock tower which is atop the old courthouse. It’s held a magic for me ever since I was a little girl, something about that clock keeping time above the town and being visible day or night always drew my attention. I guess when I see it I know I’m home. It is the first thing I look to when I arrive in town and the last thing I look for when I leave.
https://www.google.com/search?q=noblesville+clock+tower&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=-xnpUqv9F7awsASjvoHoBg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1301&bih=612#imgdii=_
(It’s the first three pictures on this search.)
Cleveland is my home. It’s a beautiful city, but also very gritty, and it taught me how to be strong. People make a lot of jokes about Cleveland, but we have some wonderful things here: a lot of culture, entertainment, nightlife, natural beauty, and tons of city pride. It’s just too bad our sports teams all suck! But I guess you can’t have it all.
I could wish for a slightly warmer climate, but the summers are pretty good!
I moved to Mid Missouri 22 years after living in the St Louis suburbs. I like the small town living but I do miss quick access to some activities, sporting events and theater productions. What I really enjoy about the small town is school class sizes where very small (about 20 kids), less traffic, we are only 2 hours away from 2 major cities, 30 minutes to a mid size college town that does have a lot of activities.
What an enjoyable morning I’ve had reading about everyone’s ‘home’. Thank you Sarah for giving us such a nice community! Inez you are a new to me author and have just downloaded your first book in the series and look forward to reading it.
I grew up on the Easten Shore of Maryland and I do miss hard shelled crabs, but for the last 50 years I have been a New Yorker! And by that I mean New York City. I love it…..the public transportation and being able to walk everywhere. Every neighborhood is a small town. We know the checkers at the super market, the dry cleaner, etc. I think we are a friendly city. We stop to give directions, take pictures of tourists (and don’t steal their cameras). We are never snowed it! There are movies, restaurants etc. within walking distance.
We travel a great deal, but when we come back to New York and see the city lit up at night, oh my……y’all come see us.
Mostly, home is wherever my cat and books and wool are. However, I spent much of my childhood in Morgantown, WV, and “home” doesn’t quite feel right if there aren’t at least hills around.