Our first stop was in North Branch, a nice small town. Wildflowers Floral & Gift is a new business; Janine has been there for about nine months. Her green plants were amaazing! She brought TIMBER in adding to her great selection of gifts. Don't forget it's almost Mother's Day!
We stopped into the North Branch library, the branch director Sue was welcoming and offered to put us on the Friends of the Library May agenda. We'd love to do a book discussion there. You can reserve and borrow TIMBER from any of the East Central Libraries.
Now it's almost noon and we're heading into Tobies. It's a Hinckley institution which has been there for many, many years.
See the cinnamon and caramel rolls? It's not an optical illusion these babies are the size of a huge grapefruit. Have I mentioned I'm getting really tempted? Tobies already has a nice book selection for those heading up north and to the cabin. But they added TIMBER to their shelves so we're excited that we're now in the town closest to our fictional town Pine Crescent and of course the site of the Great Hinckley Fire. Grand Casino already carries TIMBER and we stopped to say hi to Barb. They run a tight ship! It's a very nice and popular casino.
Sandy is a slave driver, finally we stopped for lunch! (ok one of us is type A) We can't stop for a minute...onto Moose Lake. Sidenote: We're going to a cabin on Sand Lake in Moose Lake this summer. We're excited because we'll have grandkids and our children visiting! We're already in Moose Lake Floral and Gifts. The owners are a couple of nice folks who told us about Agate Days! We're going to see about this event, it sounds fun. We got into another Thrifty White drug store, they are like old fashioned stores with everything you can imagine available to buy. Our last new store is a huge gift store called Wyndtree Lakeside Traders. Check this out! Now we are in three stores in Moose Lake! It's the big time.
Cloquet is the site of Bergquist's Imports. They're the store with the giant red horse outside of it. But seriously what gorgeous gifts!! They're been there since the 1950's. Another institution. For those few people on earth who don't know our hero Thor, he's Swedish! The book opens with him sailing to America. Barb was working there and was part way through reading TIMBER and loving it!
We're up on the Iron Range. Hibbing and Virginia are the farthest north we went. Our hotel was strategically placed next to a busy railroad track that waited until it was outside my window to blow the whistle. It's the next day, coffee first. The Virginia Thrifty White is our 5th of those pharmacy and variety stores that are saavy enough to see TIMBER is a good book to sell there.
Hibbing has a newly remodeled library and the staff is great about helping Minnesota authors. Howard Street Booksellers is a lovely store in Hibbing owned by Joe and Mary Keyes. We hope TIMBER will become part of their great selection of books. We are working on arranging a book signing to kick things off. Didn't get to spend much time there this time. Next time for sure! We may also get into the Hibbing Daily Tribune to promote a book event at Howard Street Booksellers.
Check out this impressive "Iron Man/Miner" statue in nearby Chisholm. It's 85 feet high and may be the third highest free standing statue in the United States. It's one I hadn't seen before. It salutes the men who mined the iron ore and helped build the US into an industrial giant.
Next stop, Grand Rapids to the Village Bookstore. It's loaded with wonderful books, puzzles, and gifts. We left TIMBER for the owner to read and hopefully it will be added to their large number of books written by Minnesota authors.
Heading back home our last stop was Scout and Morgan in Cambridge. Judith has created a unique bookstore you can tell is run by book lovers. Their Facebook page has tons of testimonies about the great book advice they were given. Actual SERVICE! They also have lots of authors come and discuss their work.
Upcoming event scheduled at Scout and Morgan for May 18 from 11-1. We're proud to be there to promote TIMBER, Sandy will sign books. Come up to Cambridge and see us!
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