Christmas Trees. Holiday Music. Sugar Cookies. Glitter and Bows. And Best Of All... the Mistletoe.
Romance books enhance our holiday traditions. Who doesn't love to cuddle under a warm blanket near a fire place on a cold day and read? Hop around with us to celebrate the best romance books of the season.
Read excerpts from some good books. Enter each of the author contests. Tell us what you like to read during the holidays. Find some new-to-you authors to ring in the New Year with.
Welcome to my stop on the Mistletoe Christmas Hop! This is one of the best times of year for me, and is easily my favourite Holiday of the entire year. It seems like this is the one time of year when people really do reach out and express warmth to others. I think it reminds us that magical and wonderful things are still possible, something most of us lose sight of all too easily in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
A good friend of mine partnered with me late last year to write our second Duet. Our first was a Valentine set called Pas de Deux, so we chose Christmas for the second collaborative effort. One story set in the past, and one contemporary - but the common bond was a lovely pair of silver bell earrings that became a family heirloom. We gave away the earrings earlier this month, but I do have a very pretty pendant to give to a lucky winner this time, so don't forget to leave you name and email behind! There's a picture of the necklace following the excerpt. I hope you enjoy meeting the Hamiltons. Merry Christmas to you all, and may your holiday and your hearts be well and truly blessed - today and always!
Silver
Bells - a romantic Duet
Sensual Romance - Historical Western
and contemporary
BUY it
here:
Connected by several generations of
family tradition, a gift originally given back in 1878 finds its way into the
hands and heart of the newest addition to the Hamilton family. The silver bell
earrings are an heirloom blessed by love, and once again the magic of the
holiday combines with the magic of the heart to unite lovers touched by
Destiny.
A Second
Chance by Denysé Bridger
(Historical Western
romance)
Enroute back to his home in Montana,
Joshua Hamilton is bushwhacked and left for dead. As stubborn as he is strong,
Josh makes his way to the nearest homestead, and meets Sara Grant. Left alone
after travelling to reside with her brother and his wife only to lose them to
illness, Sara nurses Joshua back to health, all the while trying to deny the
tender awakening of love. As the holiday approaches, danger arrives to threaten
the future they haven't even begun to share.
A Christmas for
Beginnings by Brigit Aine
(Contemporary erotic)
Stephanie is worried that starting
over, by moving to Wyoming to work for a guy she's never even talked to, might
be a bit extreme. Cole doesn't know what to expect from his new cook, but he
hopes to take some of the work load off his mom. Together, they learn that fate
is at work, and with a little Christmas Magick, all will be
well.
An
excerpt from A SECOND CHANCE:
Joshua feigned slumber as he watched
her move around the quiet cabin. She kept the small place immaculate, and he
sensed a peace in the atmosphere that he’d rarely encountered in his life. Only
once had he felt this safe in a home, and that was a time he preferred not to
look back on.
“Are you hungry this morning, Mr.
Hamilton?”
He smiled at her words, then opened his
eyes fully.
“How’d you know I was
awake?”
She returned the smile and came to
stand next to the bed.
“You’ve been here for most of a week
now,” she explained, lifting the blankets to look at the bandaging that was
wrapped around his waist, the bulkiest section against the right side of his
back. “I can hear the changes in your breathing. I know when your dreams are
terrorizing you, and when they’re not.”
He didn’t look terribly pleased with
the observation.
“You haven’t answered my question, Mr.
Hamilton,” she pointed out when she’d tidied the bedding and was standing
upright again.
“Joshua,” he requested. “Call me
Joshua.” He shifted in the bed, tossed aside the sheet and blanket, then gave
her an icy look. “I assume you’ve still got my clothes,
madam?”
She
nodded.
“It’s Sara,” she said firmly. “Your
clothes are just fine, Joshua. And, your gun is right there,” she pointed, and
he glanced at the shell belt and the holstered weapon where they hung from one
of the posts of the brass-trimmed headboard. She pulled a curtain and gave him
privacy that was more courtesy than necessity.
She kept her ears attuned to the sounds
of his movement, and forced herself not to run when she heard him stumble, then
sit heavily on the bed. His breathing worried
her.
“Are you all right, Mr...? Joshua,” she
corrected automatically.
There was no answer. She listened,
heard him stand, then he fell. She ran to the other side of the room, flung
aside the curtain, and sighed in dismay. Half-naked and glistening with sweat
from his exertions; Joshua’s strength had deserted him halfway into the process
of getting dressed.
She coaxed him back onto the bed with
physical effort and gentle words, fully cognizant of his virtual lack of
understanding. He passed out as soon as he was flat on the mattress
again.
* * *
Sara’s frown deepened without her
knowing it as she left the barn and walked slowly back to her cabin. She’d
tended his horse as carefully as she had the man himself, and was beginning to
worry about the continued bouts of fever and sickness that were showing no signs
of diminishing. She’d suggested riding to the nearby town of Silver Creek for a doctor,
but he’d been so adamant with his refusal, she’d relented against her better
judgement.
She opened the door to the cabin and
went inside. When her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she spotted him sitting up
in the bed, gazing out the window. His head turned the moment she came fully in
and he was watching her in thoughtful silence.
“How long have I been
here?”
It was a question he asked each time he
regained consciousness and was without the maddened
fever.
“Six days,” she replied
quietly.
His look moved back to the window, and
the distant range of mountains.
“Thank you, Sara,” he said after a nod
and a lengthy pause. He felt her next to him and shifted his gaze from the
window to her again. She was a pretty woman, he noted, really seeing her for the
first time. Sara was like him in colour, fair-haired without being blonde, eyes
not quite hazel, but blue-green in shade, and she was willowy slender; deceptive
in her appearance of being fragile, he knew. In her quiet, watchful eyes he felt
compassion and caring.
“Is there anyone I should be notifying
about your presence here?” she asked cautiously.
He almost smiled, then shook his
head.
“Someone somewhere must love you,
Joshua Hamilton,” she spoke the words before she could think not to, and his
hazel eyes sharpened with a flash of anger.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly.
“Your life is not my business.”
When she would have walked away, Joshua
grabbed her hand and made her look at him again.
“I owe you my life,” he said with a
small smile, irony in his steady tone.
She laughed very
softly.
“I don’t think so. You’re as stubborn a
man as any I’ve ever met. I think you’re just not ready to die, so nothing’s
going to change your mind.” For the first time, Joshua really smiled and she was
struck again by his attractiveness. “You still can’t get up, however,” she
admonished firmly. “Not for a few days, at
least.”
“I can make it to the table, Sara,” he
objected.
Their eyes clashed as they stared at
each other, but Joshua won that battle of wills. She nodded, reluctantly, and
offered wordless support once he’d pulled on his pants and had his shirt over
his shoulders. He was gasping for breath when he crossed the room and collapsed
on a chair at the table.
Sara pretended not to
notice.
“Do you think you can eat
now?”
He looked for something other than
enquiry in that question, but there was nothing in her eyes that revealed the
sarcasm he instinctively felt was behind the
words.
“Have you got any
whiskey?”
“No,” she smiled and made no effort at
all to hide the faint derision his request incited. “I used the last of it on
your back. Probably the best use it’s ever had.”
“Coffee?” he revised, grin now solidly
in place.
“Coffee I can supply,” she assured
amiably and went to get the pot from the top of the
stove.
* * *
The fever had returned shortly after
sunset, and Sara was watching from her makeshift bed a few feet from the
tossing, restless man tangled in the sheets. He’d sapped his strength throughout
the day, obstinately refusing to go back to bed. The chills had started after
supper, then the fever came back with a vengeance. He was suffering the demons
that haunted his dreams, too, she noted with uneasy fear. He talked a lot when
he was delirious with fever. Most of what he talked about was
terrifying.
Sara had moved from the cabin’s single
bedroom the first night he’d spent in her home. She’d been afraid to leave him,
fearing he’d die throughout that long night. Joshua had been put in the bed that
was curtained off on the opposite side of the cabin; the makeshift bedroom that
had been hers when Jim and Eve were alive and in the only bedroom. She mentally
veered away from those reminiscences and concentrated on the man in the bed. She
felt the subtle change before she saw the evidence her eyes needed to be
certain.
He tried to get
up.
Sara rose instantly, then ran to sit on
the edge of the mattress. She ran a caressing stroke across his forehead and
whispered his name. His skin was hot, the fever scorching it’s way insidiously
into his brain, creating demons and terrors that she didn’t want to think about.
Anything that could scare a man like Joshua Hamilton wasn’t something she much
cared to contemplate.
“Joshua,” she whispered, catching his
hand when it flailed wildly in an attempt to push away whatever was chasing him
inside his mind. She turned aside, sank her hands into the chilled water in the
bowl that still stood on the small table. As she began to wring the water from
the compress she felt his hands encircle her waist and pull her downward. The
cold rag hit the floor with a wet plop and she was suddenly wrestling with the
delirious man.
“Joshua, stop
it...”
He twisted, pinned her under him and
her heart felt like it wanted to spring from her chest when she saw the inferno
that lit his light hazel eyes. The brightness of fever was there, but beyond it
was something equally potent.
“Stop this,” she
reasserted.
Joshua ignored her and her breath
deserted her when his head descended and his mouth covered hers in a kiss that
made her entire body quiver with fright.
“Mr. Hamilton, don’t,” she pleaded long
moments later. He was gentle now, his hands exploring as he murmured endearments
and soft, pleasant sounds–all things meant for another woman. The woman he
talked about so often in his delirium.
“I’m not your Sarah, Joshua,” she said
quietly, forcing her voice to a steadiness that was sheer effort of will. “Look
at me,” she demanded softly. “I’m Sara Grant, not Sarah
Hamilton.”
For an impossible moment she thought he
hadn’t heard her, then his head rose from her neck and he stared down at her.
The raw torture she glimpsed made her regret her own defense for a few timeless
seconds. He was a strong, driven man; the internal blaze was extinguished, his
eyes shuttered and guarded as sanity returned with painful
clarity.
“I’m sorry, Sara,” he whispered, moving
off her with a slow, heavy sigh. “I’m sorry...” He covered his eyes with his
hands and tried to steady his strained gasps for
air.
Sara forcibly resisted the desire to
pull him close again and offer whatever comfort she could give to his scarred
and bleeding soul. She knew he’d reject anything other than quiet dismissal of
what had just happened.
“Try to sleep,” she murmured gently,
and slid from the bed as unobtrusively as she could manage. She bent to retrieve
the compress, dropped it back into the water and went to her blankets. As she
walked, she pretended her knees weren’t shaking, and her heartbeat roaring so
loudly within her that he could probably hear it from the other side of the
room. He was still now, unnaturally so; she suspected he spent a great deal of
time that way. He was too good at not moving.
“Would you like to talk about it?” she
asked into the darkness.
“No.”
There was enough finality in the single
syllable to effectively end any further attempts at conversation for the
night.
THIS is the pendant that will be given to one lucky winner at the end of the Hop, as well as a copy of the Silver Bells Duet. Two runner up winners will receive the eBook, as well. Happy Christmas, everyone!!
