Please Welcome My Guest

Please welcome my guest, Author Melinda Curtis. Melinda is an award winning, USA Today bestselling author.  She writes the Harmony Valley series of sweet, light-hearted romances for the Harlequin Heartwarming line. Brenda Novak says: “Season of Change has found a place on my keeper shelf.”  Melinda also writes the sweet romantic comedy Bridesmaid series and fun, steamy romances. 

Melinda’s latest release is A Heartwarming Christmas. This holiday season, warm your heart with 12 connected sweet holiday romances set in Christmas Town from 12 Harlequin Heartwarming authors who are USA Today, national bestselling, and award-winning authors.

There are four connected anthologies in A Heartwarming Christmas. That means each set of three novellas shares characters and storylines! This collection of PG-rated holiday romances are all set in Christmas Town, a location introduced in the 2014 Harlequin Heartwarming release Christmas, Actually. A Heartwarming Christmas will bring you laughter, tears, and happily-ever-afters (no cliffhangers), for more than 1200 pages. Foreword by small town lover and New York Times bestseller Kristan Higgins. 

Magic Apples

I grew up on my grandparent’s 50 acre sheep ranch. My brothers were three and four years older than me and mostly uninterested in playing with a girl. My mom worked during the day. Television – dare I admit it – was black and white, and had barely ten fuzzy channels. The only kids’ programming was Captain Kangaroo in the morning and the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. My grandparents were old school, and I was expected to use my imagination and amuse myself during the day.

Which leads me to my heroine in A Comeback Christmas – Chloe Wright. She also grew up in a small town during a simpler time. Chloe has a knack for being able to see the potential in things. When she sees her childhood crush, Ted, trying to sell apples and failing, she immediately knows how to make apples more than just apples. She makes them magic apples that children can make a wish on when they take a bite. Ted resists, of course, because he’s a linear thinker and apples will always be apples to him.

I enjoyed writing Ted and Chloe’s journey to a magical place – a place where legend has it a kiss under the gazebo mistletoe in the town square predicts wedding bells in the future. And I especially loved being a part of A Heartwarming Christmas anthology. It’s rare that 12 authors from a Harlequin line come together to write stories set in the same place – Christmas Town – much less connect their storylines.

So prepare to settle in with a magic apple, some mistletoe, and a collection of sweet holiday stories to warm your heart. Christmas Town is waiting.

Excerpt from: A Comeback Christmas

Theodore Lincoln could not screw up.

If he did, he’d let down the ten previous generations who’d run the family apple farm and the three generations expecting a Lincoln family Christmas with all the bells and whistles.

Everyone – dead or alive – expected Ted to make the right decisions.

But there was a glut of apples on the market driving the price down. Last year’s crop income had barely covered the taxes, much less retirement income for his parents or Uncle Ben. His younger sister Abigail was on a crash course to have another child with that loser Frank Farasi, who barely acknowledged three year-old Lizzie. And Lizzie? She expected Christmas to be magical. Big tree. Sparkly lights. And presents. Credit card bending presents.

Ted shouldn’t be standing in front of the Write grist mill thinking about taking out a home equity loan to expand the farm.

“Well if it isn’t Teddy Lincoln.”

Not her.

Not her.

Not her. Not her. Not her.

Chloe Wright was the only one who called him Teddy. She’d had a crush on him since she was in the third grade and he in the fourth. Back then she was a non-stop talker. Nerd to the nth degree. Overbite. Brillo copper curls. Belly fat. Dress her in green tights and a pointed red cap and she could have been a stand in for a garden gnome.

She’d followed him around like a puppy. Through braces and bras and middle school. The other boys in Christmas Town made fun of her. And of him. Ted had wanted her to be struck by lightning. Dropped into a manhole. Teleported into another dimension.

And then on the first day Chloe entered high school – a day Ted had been dreading – he turned at the sound of her laughter and realized she wasn’t a roly-poly puppy with an overbite. She was tall and curvy and word-stealing pretty. Her smile was worth every penny her adopted parents had paid. And her hair…She’d finally grown it out and straightened it. Every guy in high school bent over backward for her attention. Every guy but Ted.

He’d treated her like dirt for so long, he couldn’t swallow his pride and be nice to her.

 

Buy Links for A Heartwarming Christmas

Amazon: Heartwarming Christmas Twelve Holiday Romances

Itunes: A Heartwarming Christmas

BN: A Heartwarming Christmas

Kobo: A Heartwarming Christmas Set

Special Offer -

Readers of this blog will be sent a FREE sweet, romantic comedy novella (You’ve Gotta Kiss a Lotta Frogs) by signing up for Melinda’s book release email newsletter. (Note: you must close the loop on sign-up by confirming you are a living, breathing reader via email.) Link: http://www.melindacurtis.net/join-melinda-s-mailing-list

You can find Melinda at the links below:

Website: www.MelindaCurtis.net

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelindaCurtisAuthor

Twitter: @MelCurtisAuthor

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