Click for Gloucester, Massachusetts Forecast

INDIVIDUAL BOOK PAGES

The Old Mermaid's Tale: A Romance of the Great Lakes
(novel)

My Last Romance & other
passions
(short stories)

The Mermaid Shawl
& other Beauties

(lace knitwear design )

Each Angel Burns

(novel)

BLOGS

Parlez Moi Blog

Valentine Cookbook

ENDEAVORS

PERSONAL

KathleenValentine.com

Newspaper Columns

Smashwords

Amazon Profile

Linked-In

Facebook

Twitter

Contact

 

 

   


Welcome to my web site. Here you will find information on my books -- both paperback and e-books. Please visit my blog: Parlez-Moi Blog for more information on my books and for book reviews, interviews with independent authors, knitting patterns, recipes, and blog posts on a variety of subjects. Thanks for visiting!

The Reluctant Belsnickel of Opelt's Wood

Novelette (23k words) – Folklore / Romance – When Father Nicholas Bauer becomes the pastor of St. Walburga's in a rural Pennsylvania Dutch community he make it his mission to revive some of the Old World Traditions including Belsnickel. According to the local legend, Belsnickel was an old man who lived in the woods and visited children on the evening of December 6th to see if they've been bad or good. He recruits his childhood friend Gretchen Fritz who owns a quilting shop called the Calico Cuckoo. Both of them grew up with Oliver Eberstark and Father Nick is determined to get Oliver to play Belsnickel for the local children. When they were young Oliver was a popular athlete and local heart-throb but now he is a recluse he lives alone at his grandfather's sawmill deep in Opelt's Wood. As the plans for Belsnickel and Christmas progress Father Nick hopes to understand what happened to Oliver and why he is now a hermit and Gretchen rediscovers why half the girls in town had crushes on him. $1.49

KINDLE

The Reluctant Belsnickel of Opelt's Wood
Free Sampler

Download the FREE sampler today!

Romance, Crime, Good Food: The Kathleen Valentine Sampler
4 short stories • 3 chapters • 2 essays • 8 recipes

PDF (read online or print) | MOBI (for Kindle) |  EPUB (for other e-readers)

99¢ Novelettes and Short Stories in e-format.
Available for Kindle, Nook, and other e-readers.

Arthur's Story
Arthur's Story:
A Love Story

YA/Coming of Age
KindleNook
The Crazy Old lady in the Attic
The Crazy Old Lady In The Attic
Psychological Horror
KindleNook
Ghosts of a Beach Town in Winter
Ghosts of a Beach Town in Winter
Suspense / Ghosts
KindleNook
Home-made Pie and Sausage
Two Short Stories about Revenge
Crime / Horror
KindleNook

The Old Mermaid's Tale


Posted on an Amazon Discussion Board, June 22, 2011: I just finished The Old Mermaid's Tale and, omg, it's going to be really hard to find something to read next. It was a love story but so much more than that. It was also the story of the the opening of the St. Lawrence channel and shipping on the Great Lakes, but told through the eyes of old mariners, through legend and tales passed down from generations. It was by far the best book I've read in months and that's saying something as I go through 3-4 books a week. It was haunting and beautifully written and everything you could ask for in a book. If there was something more than five stars I would give it. It will stay with me for a long time and probably be read over and over.

The Old Mermaid's Tale

"A beautiful story, beautifully told."
- Susan Oleksiw, A Murderous Innocence

"A timeless lovestory rich in maritime lore."
   
  - BookLovers Alert 2007 Rising Star Nominee

"People ask me if I, as a fisherman, ever encountered a mermaid.
I have in this book and they are better than I imagined.
This is hot."

    
  - Mark S. Williams, F/V Black Sheep

Order from Amazon - Paperback or Kindle

Read the First Chapter WATCH THE VIDEO

Visit the Old Mermaid Inn Website

Before the Edmund Fitzgerald there was the Carl D. Bradley, the Willaim B. Davok, the Betty Hedger, the American Sailor and many more...
In 1959 the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to international commerce creating a problem for seaport towns bordering the Great Lakes. Within the first year over a thousand barges and tankers from all over the world arrived at these seaports to unload, re-outfit and reload. While waiting, the crew, that had been at sea for weeks, went ashore looking for fun and companionship. Restaurants, bars, pool halls, rooming houses, tattoo parlors, and rumors of other - less savory - forms of entertainment sprang up in the blocks surrounding the commercial docks. Those parts of town acquired a deservedly terrible reputation.

When Clair Wagner begins college in Port Presque Isle she dreams of meeting a "handsome sailor with the constellations of the Northern Seas in his eyes". Into her life comes Pio, a beautiful Italian fisherman, who dreams of life on the big lakes under the aurora borealis. She meets Gary, the dashing son of a wealthy shipping magnate, who introduces her to Canal Street where she encounters The Old Mermaid Inn, a tavern that, as Gary tells her, "deserves its reputation".

But The Old Mermaid Inn, with its giant painting of a seductive mermaid, is home to some fascinating people including Tessie, the owner and original mermaid, and the intriguing Baptiste, a Breton mariner injured in a shipwreck, who earns his living as a musician.

With Pio, Clair discovers passion, with Gary she gains entry into the world of the commercial waterfront, and with Baptiste she discovers all-consuming love. But as her relationship with Baptiste grows she discovers he is far more complex and mysterious than she could imagine. He has secrets and his secrets will alter her life forever.

Each Angel Burns

Each Angel Burns

Each Angel Burns
is now available in paperback or e-book from
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble.com
and other online booksellers

Each Angel Burns is a masterpiece!
- Maureen Gill, January Moon
Read the full review on her blog.

With Each Angel Burns, Valentine picks up
where DuMaurier left off!

- Jane Ward, The Mosaic Artist
Read the full review on her blog

In the latter part of the 19th century the Monastery of St. Gabriel the Archangel was built on a cliff overlooking the ocean on a peninsula in Maine. From its earliest days there were rumors of strange activity there --- tunnels through the cliff were reported to give access for smugglers, a miracle-working nun was said to live there, and a group of drunken lumberjacks who stormed the convent to kidnap wives claimed to have been vanquished by a giant angel with a flaming sword. One hundred years later, when the last of the old cloistered nuns was removed to a retirement home, the decision was made to close and sell the convent. That's when it was discovered that he convent's treasure, a marble statue of the Archangel Gabriel by Italian sculptor Giovanni Dupré, was missing. More......

Fry Bacon. Add Onions: The Valentine Family & Friends Cookbook

Fry Bacon. Add Onions
The new expanded and redesigned edition of
Fry Bacon. Add Onions: The Valentine Family & Friends Cookbook:
five generations of good eating

is now available to be ordered online:
  • Paperback: 178 pages
  • ISBN-10: 0978594045
  • ISBN-13: 978-097859404
In this combination memoir and family cookbook blogger and novelist Kathleen Valentine combines 30 posts from her blog with nearly 400 recipes collected from family and friends. Growing up in a "mostly Pennsylvania Dutch" family she collected and recorded recipes from grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, cousins, friends, etc. which were combined in the first Valentine Family & Friends Cookbook published in 1981. This was expanded in the 1992 edition and now, in this third edition, nearly 400 recipes combine with essays recording memories of growing up in rural Pennsylvania and photographs from six generations.

Essays topics include making sauerkraut and soltz (sultz) (a German pickled meat loaf), toasting marshmallows and catching fireflies, the old-country Christmas traditions of making stollen and visits from Belsnickle, old world ghost stories, their grandmother's quilts, and more.

Traditional family recipes include schmarn, panhaas, moultasha, a variety of sausage recipes, hassenpfeffer, and liver dumplings, a wide variety of pickles and relishes, as well as keuchels (a type of fried dough), apple dumplings, and rhubarb crisps and pies. Contemporary recipes from the younger generations of the Valentine family expand the collection with everything from dips and cocktails to chowders, cakes and cookies. Among the more popular recipes first featured on Valentine's blog are:
  • three maple syrup pies
  • apricot-apple crisp with maple cream
  • caramel peachy-pear pandowdy
  • honey & white peach pie
  • Pennsylvania Dutch hot and sour soup
Though this collection is a memoir in food of the Valentine family it could be the story of any first, second and third generation immigrant family.

The Mermaid Shawls & other Beauties: Shawls, Cocoons & Wraps
NOW AVAILABLE FOR KINDLE
#1 Top Rated Lace Knitting book &
#20 Top Rated Needlework book on Kindle

PAPERBACK NOW AVAILABLE!!!
From AMAZON     
     From BARNES & NOBLE

Mermaid Shawl

 

Just got my hands on your e-book "Mermaid Shawls", and am absolutely delighted! Thanks for all the tips, suggestions ~ and heart ~ that are in the book. It is wonderful!
- KathyO in Ferndale, WA

I just bought your book, after looking at the inside. It is just what I have been looking for, Your illustrations and  commentary have eased my fear of starting a shawl.
- Margaret in Canada

 

Worth every cent, In my opinion. This is one I will read and re-read. - MMario on Knitter's Review.

I just purchased and downloaded your e-book. How fabulous it is!!! The download was easy and zippy fast. - kknitterkc on Ravelry

NOW AVAILABLE IN PDF FORMAT FOR INSTANT DOWNLOAD! $14

Note: As soon as you complete your purchase your screen should be redirected to the download site. If you wait more than 2 minutes and do not see the PDF file please email me and I will send you the link for downloading.

The Mermaid Shawl:
Shawls, Cocoons & Wraps

by Kathleen Valentine

Inspired by the popularity of The Mermaid Shawl first featured on Parlez-Moi Blog, this book provides instruction for the Mermaid Shawl and two variations, the Gypsy Shawl and the Shawl of Falling Leaves and Shooting Stars. In addition there are chapters on creating Emily's Shawl, four stoles and wraps and how to convert a rectangular shawl into a cocoon.

Photographs, charts, and illustrations. Available as an eBook or as a paperback.

BONUS!

With the purchase of this eBook you will receive a 20% discount on the shawl pin of your choice from Leslie Wind!


My Last Romance & other passions

My last Romance

My Last Romance & other passions
by Kathleen Valentine

Eight stories that celebrate the wonder of finding love... These stories sweep the reader into sensuous worlds where ordinary people discover, or rediscover, love. Foolish love, forbidden love, married love – even murderous love, each story is a seductive jewel populated with characters that seem like someone we could know – or someone we could be. Each of the stories in this collection is an exquisitely rendered portrait of people from a broad range of ages each proving that passion and love are eternal, regardless of life's far-ranging challenges.

Buy from
Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com

Available in paperback or e-format

Knit Your Tail Off Individual Patterns


The Pooling-On-Purpose Project
Knit YourTail Off, Vol.1
Offers instruction on working with hand-painted yarn and forcing colors to "pool". Booklet includes instructions for scarf, wrap, ruana and kimono.

------
Click on image to go to Kindle store or
Buy Button from Ravelry

Sumptuous Silk Bags
Knit Your Tail Off, Vol.2
Offers directions for knitting three bags from silk or any other fiber. It includes information on working with silk fibers and detailed instructions for knitting entrelac.

------
Click on image to go to Kindle store or
Buy Button from Ravelry


Like Us on Faebook

ShareThis

Eight Stories about Love & Murder
e-Book Format Only

• Amazon Kindle $2.99
• Smashwords NOW FREE!


KNIT YOUR TAIL OFF
is a collection of individual patterns available for download.
CLICK TO SEE THE CURRENT COLLECTION

On May 22, 2008 our dear friend
Mark S. Williams
left this world.
Please visit his Memorial Page at www.FVBlackSheep.com.

© Copyright 2011 Valentine Design • All rights reserved.
All work shown on this site is the property of Valentine Design

This site designed by Valentine Design

Free JavaScript from 
Rainbow Arch