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.
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
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Itunes: A Heartwarming Christmas
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Great post, Melinda!
ReplyDeleteI love the excerpt and can't wait to read the whole thing!
ReplyDeleteI laughed out loud at your description of Chloe. There isn't a serpent involved, is there? Sounds like a magic apple will make big changes. Gotta read it!
ReplyDeleteI didn't add that Chloe also teaches those kids how to juggle the apples first, so they get to have fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Katherine for hosting us today!
You're welcome. Great excerpt!
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