Title: Regency Christmas Kisses
Author: Amanda McCabe / Kathy L Wheeler
Genre: Regency Historical Romance Anthology
Book Blurb:
Take a walk back in time with five sweet Regency Christmas shorts and novellas.
Snowbound Christmas –Amanda McCabe (A sequel to "The Wallflower's Mistletoe Wedding") Years ago, fate parted Helen Layton and Charles St. George. Now a wealthy widow and a famous artist, they are stuck together in a Christmas blizzard! Can old pain, and true love, bring them back together?
Lady Felicity’s Feud with Christmas – Kathy L Wheeler (Part of the Rebel Lords of London series) Christmas does not come easy for a young woman who has seen too much tragedy around the holidays. Lord Lexum is snared into obtaining Lady Felicity’s assistance for a Christmas event. Can he find a way to show Felicity Christmas also means hope?
A Partridge in a Pear Tree – Amanda Mc Cabe A National Reader's Choice Award Finalist Spend the holidays at a Regency England house party! Seeking an heir to her fortune, a widow challenges her family to a wild holiday scavenger hunt in the novella "A Partridge in a Pear Tree"--and two lost, lonely people find a lasting love and true family seeking the Twelve Days of Christmas...
Five Gold Rings – Kathy L Wheeler (Part of the My True Love Gave to Me anthology from the Oklahoma Romance Writers.) The noblest of England’s finest families vie for the honor to attend Pemberton’s Annual Christmas Ball—most especially those with daughters of a marriageable age. Something Bartholomew Dixon, Viscount Weston, in all accounts, typically avoids like the plague but for one idiotic wager. He’s acquired four of the five rings required to win…but what of the fifth?
Nine Ladies Dancing – Amanda McCabe (the sequel to A Partridge in a Pear Tree!) Spend Christmas in the magic of Regency England! The lovely, red-headed Gordon twins, studious Jane and vivacious Kitty, are excited to attend their first Kirkwood Christmas Ball at Swan Court—-and are filled with plans for the future. Kitty has dreams of marrying the Duke of Tremanton, while Jane thinks the handsome new vicar, Harry Phillips, might suit her. But Christmas has a magic of its own—and the universe has its own idea of romance! Will all end well, under the mistletoe?
Excerpt from Snowbound Christmas:
The landlords started to protest, but a soft voice said, “Only if you take me with you.”
Shocked, Charles spun around to see Helen Layton standing behind them, like a dream, a memory. No, not Helen Layton—Lady Fallon.
She hardly seemed like the sweet, merry girl who had once romped with him over the fields of Hilltop, her red-gold tumble of hair bright in the sunlight, her muslin skirts dusty. Her lips sweet as she kissed him. The girl he had once thought he would die if he could not marry.
Now she wore a fur-edged pelisse, her hair gathered up in elaborate curls and plaits under a matching fur hat, her eyes hard as jewels. So still, almost statue-like, no laughter in her. Yet then he saw, deep in those violet-blue eyes, a flash of something he remembered so well. Adventure. A dare. A laugh.
“I hear you have a carriage, Charles,” she said teasingly. “May I still call you Charles? I can find no such equipage for miles, it seems, and mine has quite broken down. If we are both going to Hilltop…”
Charles finally found his voice at last. She had always overwhelmed him. “Yes, indeed. But I only have a small phaeton with a half-cover.”
“Perfect!” she declared, that dimple he remembered so well flashing in her ivory cheek. “It must be fast, then. My maid went ahead yesterday from the last inn with most of my luggage, and I was stuck here when my carriage went awry. I just have these two small valises. We shall be quite cozy.”
Without another word, she took his arm and glided outside, from the chaos of the crowded public room into the snow and silence, like a goddess floating above the unruly world in one of his paintings. Maybe he always still painted her now, as she had once been his muse, without even realizing it.
“Which equipage is yours, Charles?” she said. He gestured to his canary-yellow carriage, the cover drawn up as far as it would go, and she laughed. “Of course. You would have only the most dashing one you could find. We shall be at Hilltop in no time.”
“Helen…” he warned. “Are you quite sure? The weather is becoming beastly, and Rose would flay me alive if I saw one of her guests come to harm.”
“Poor Charles, how you do worry,” she said carelessly, laying her gloved hand ever so briefly against his cheek, a spot of fire in the chill. “But I know you are a fine driver! You always have been. And they do say you won that race to Brighton with Gillingham last spring, so brave. And I can’t stay here, there are no rooms. It will be an adventure. Like the old days, yes?”
The old days. And, just as if the long years had not passed between them, the daring, the dash of Helen called out to him, made that low hum of excitement that had always grown within him when she was near. The promise of some dangerous sort of fun. She might look the grand lady now, but maybe inside there was a spark of the old Helen. The spark of the old Charles. It made him feel daring, too.
He lifted her up onto the narrow seat and settled the fur blankets around her. The innkeeper’s wife hurried to bring them a basket of food and more blankets, and more warnings, but he set the carriage into motion into the snowy night.
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What I love most about the holiday season:
That’s hard to answer, I am a Christmas-holic! I love the music, the lights, the food (my grandmother used to make these chocolate-coconut candies every year I try to copy, but they’re never quite right…). Spending time with friends and family, doing all the fun things my town offers at this time of year (I live in Santa Fe, and there are amazing light displays, concerts, farolito walks). The memories of this time of year are always the best, and I like to create that for my characters, as well.
❤️ 🎄 💚❄️❤️☃️💚
Why is your featured book a must-read to get you in the holiday mood?
I looove a snowed-in romance tale! There is something so cozy about being stuck with that one special person (or one not-yet-known-special) person at the holidays, with a warm fireside and nice bottle of wine. It is so intimate and special!
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Open internationally.
Runs July 1 – 31, 2024
Drawing will be held on August 1, 2024.
Author Biography:
Amanda McCabe wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen--a vast historical epic starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class (and her parents wondered why math was not her strongest subject...)
She's never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA Award, the Romantic Times BOOKReviews Reviewers' Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Santa Fe with a Poodle, a cat, a wonderful husband, and a very and far too many books and royal memorabilia collections.
When not writing or reading, she loves taking dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network--even though she doesn't cook.
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