Sweet touch added to book signing event
Author Moira Leigh MacLeod to unveil latest novel in Cape Breton
A well-known author is adding a sweet touch to an upcoming book signing.
Glace Bay native Moira Leigh MacLeod will host several book signings of her third book “Plenty to Hide,” with the main launch at the Sweet Side of the Moon Bakery and Café in Glace Bay on Nov. 17 from 2-5 p.m.
“It fits with the storyline as my main character owns a bakery,” said MacLeod, who now lives in the Halifax Regional Municipality community of Whites Lake. “It seems to be a natural fit.” “When people got wind I was going to do another book they indicated to me they hoped it was a continuation of the (“The Bread Maker”) storyline,” she said. “They wanted to hear more about Mabel’s journey.”
MacLeod was born and raised in Glace Bay, the daughter of the late Donald MacInnis, the last mayor of Glace Bay before municipal amalgamation in 1995. In 1976, MacLeod left the community to attend Dalhousie University and Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax. She worked for 33 years in various provincial government departments before retiring five years ago.
In 2014, when MacLeod began writing her first book, she only had a character in mind.
“I didn’t have a plot or a storyline in mind it just kind of came,” she said. “I pretty much let my characters take me along as opposed to me taking my characters along. I had no expectations it would be received so well.”
No town is named in the books and MacLeod has said the story could have taken place in any small community in the 1930s. However she said anyone from Glace Bay would know it’s a story that’s largely based on the Cape Breton community.
“The Bread Maker” is set in 1933 and is about a girl named Mabel who just wants to bake bread. Mabel leaves the cold shack she shares with her father for the warmth of her kneading table at Cameron’s store and gets caught in a snowstorm, sparking events that expose the raw
humanity of those around her. The book is described as a story of “loyalty and betrayal, guilt and shame, and faith and doubt, as the dirty secrets of the bleak coal mining community throw lives into turmoil.”
In November 2017, MacLeod released “Or So It Seemed.” Set in 1946, Mabel is now a happy wife, a new mother and the owner of the town’s most popular bakery. The black clouds that had followed her in the past have parted and her future has never looked brighter. Or so it seemed. A devastating loss and murder abruptly turn Mabel’s tranquil life upside down.
“The story (“Plenty to Hide”) started brewing in my head — I couldn’t get the characters out of my mind if I tried — so I thought I might as well do a third,” she said.
It’s 1948, and Mabel is happily juggling the demands of being a wife, a mother and the owner of
the town’s most popular bakery. Life is full and good. There is a wedding in the offing and plans for a special homecoming, but things unravel. A violent attack, a tragic accident and a shocking secret that forces Mabel to confront a troubling moral dilemma.
MacLeod has written three books in four years and now plans to take a break.
“I’ll likely do a fourth,” she said, adding it will most likely be her last. “I’ll probably get back at it in a year’s time.”