Title: Open With Care
Author: Pauline Baird Jones & Genie Davis
Genre: Science Fiction Romance, Holiday Romance
Book Blurb:
Unexpected guests come bearing gifts. This interstellar Christmas will be one for the ages…
Gini won't let her bickering family or the incoming blizzard dampen her holiday spirits. But nothing could prepare her for the uninvited houseguests. She's not sure if she's ready to exchange gifts with the man who broke her heart or the little green aliens on the roof.
But the intergalactic visitors have a gift for Gini… a taste of the youth and love she left behind…
Jane MacKenzie has never opened a Christmas gift that transformed her world. At least, not until she accidentally opens a box to find a man who was lost in a blizzard over 100 years ago. Jane isn't sure how to handle the strange visitor and his otherworldly agreement…
But the Christmastime encounter may just open her heart to a love that can stand the test of time.
Open With Care contains two sci-fi romances inspired by the spirit of gift giving. If you like simmering chemistry, snowy Wyoming settings, and family drama, then you'll love Genie Davis and Pauline Baird Jones' festive story set.
Buy Open With Care today to discover why love isn't alien on Christmas!
Excerpt:
Gini pulled in close to the porch with a sigh of relief she didn’t bother to hide—since she was pretty sure her passengers wouldn’t notice or care. Of course, relief at not ending up in a snowbank was tempered with unease about what came next. The cabin was lit up like Christmas was coming. It always was lit up, since no one bothered to take the lights down. At least Christmas really was coming this time. And it was a good thing mom had left the lights on, because through the last few bends in the road, that had been the beacon she followed. If this wasn’t a full-on blizzard, it was the first cousin to one. She gripped the wheel for a couple of seconds, but she had no idea what to tell the kids. She could sort of remember being thirteen, but nine seemed light years away. What grade in school was he in? Third? Fourth? She didn’t dare ask because it all depended on when he’d started—
“I need the password to the WiFi,” Daphne said.
Gini should have seen that one coming. “I’ll try to get that for you.” The good news, there was WiFi, though someone—someone probably named Gini—would need to sweep the snow off the dish. Which wouldn’t happen tonight. No point when it was still coming down. The bad news, her mom liked to change the password just before incoming visitors arrived. She’d write the new one down on something random and put it in a ‘safe’ place that could be almost anywhere in the cabin. Or back in the house in town. And just to make matters more interesting, she had little scraps of paper with code looking words written on them that she kept inside the cover of her tablet. Sometimes she hid the new password in there, which meant someone had to go through the scraps every time. Gini never could tell if it was innocent-crazy or her mom yanking their chains.
She saw Daphne make a face at her and decided to let her sort through the scraps this time. It would be good for her character.
Gini pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out into blowing snow and a chill that cut through her Texas coat like it was a puff of smoke. At least it wasn’t as cold as it could be, since it was snowing, but her blood had thinned in warmer climes, so it felt cold enough—as she told the lady at the rental desk earlier when asked about it. And the lady who had sold them bottles of soda and water. And every person they met heading out of the airport. Cue so many eye rolls from Daphne she looked like a zombie.
She pulled open Isaac’s car door in time to see him tuck a notebook and his electronic tablet into his backpack. His gaze was a bit too bland as it met hers. She knew that look, or remembered it, but what could he be plotting up here in the snowy middle of not much?
“I’ll get your suitcase out,” she said and waded through calf deep snow to the rear of the SUV. Up on the spacious porch, the front door opened, spilling a hopeful shaft of light onto the white drift piled up there. The figure in the square of light wasn’t her mother, who had gotten steadily smaller with each passing year and rolled in a wheelchair these days. Did she see the broad shoulders of a guy—
“Gini?” The voice was man-deep and twanged a chord of memory she’d thought she buried too deep to twang.
It couldn’t be the boy next door, her best friend besides Van, her first love who’d left without looking back—
He strode forward, the porch light briefly falling around him like a spotlight.
Dexter James Tolliver. In the flesh.
Her head tipped to one side. In the much-better-than she remembered flesh. And wearing the uniform of the local sheriff. Her thoughts did a kind of spin, but considering she had a Thing—a Thing that was kind of a marriage proposal that she wasn’t thinking about—pending at home, the hallelujah chorus seemed inappropriate.
* * *
Of course there was mistletoe hanging in the hall and Dex managed to catch her under it. The kiss was both familiar and different, because he was a man, not the boy who had left her, but familiar enough to make her wonder if she was completely over—
Buy Links:
What I love most about the holiday season:
I love everything about the holiday season except shopping for gifts. I’m terrible at finding gifts. But I love the family time, the music, I love the lights, I love that I’m finally getting that white Christmas that I grew up with. I love that I have grandkids who feel the magic, so that I can rediscover the magic with them.
Giveaway:
Enter to win a $100 Amazon (US) Gift Card
Open internationally
Runs July 1 – 31
Drawing will be held on August 1
Author Biography:
Award-winning, USA Today Bestselling author, Pauline never liked reality, so she writes books. She likes to wander among the genres, rampaging like Godzilla, because she does love peril mixed in her romance.
Genie Davis is a multi-published novelist, journalist, and produced screen and television writer living near the beach in Los Angeles.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://www.paulinebjones.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulinebjones
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/perilouspauline/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulinebjones/
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Pauline-Baird-Jones/e/B000APFS0M/