Contemporary family sagas find a home in Return to Welcome set in a fictional town.
Title Finding Mercy Return to Welcome Book 1
Author Bonnie Edwards
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
Seriously? Return to Welcome? She’d rather chew rusty nails… Mercy Talbot left Welcome on a high—a golden-girl beauty queen who stepped confidently into a bright, exciting future. But that was a long time ago and that girl is far, far, away. She’s failed in her career, failed in love, failed her family—and she’s dead broke.
All Mercy wants is to forget her failures and move forward into a new life with a fresh set of dreams—and get out of Welcome before it sucks her back in for good. But one look at her precocious niece who desperately needs her sends Mercy on a journey into her past that will change everyone’s future.
Clay Foster used to be Welcome’s bad boy, but marriage and his daughter Dilly have transformed him into a devoted father. Widowed now and struggling to be the daddy his child needs, Clay fights his sudden and unexpected attraction to Mercy. But, tempted as he is, Clay can’t afford to be taken in by a golden girl. Beautiful, talented women like Mercy always have an exit strategy and when her career beckons, Clay knows she’ll leave him and Dilly flat. His daughter has already lost her mother and he won’t put his little girl’s heart on the line.
When Mercy learns her tattered dreams and dead career have been reborn, will she leave the man and child who need her? Will Clay believe in their future and accept that Mercy has found there’s no place like home?
Excerpt
Chapter 1
“Did you hear your sister-in-law’s back in town?”
Clay Foster’s receptionist watched for his reaction from her seat across the front counter of his veterinarian clinic.
This was his dead wife’s sister’s first trip home in two years. “She must have blown in for a quick visit.”
“Pfft, so much for making it big,” Sybil commented with a glance at her computer screen.
“Out with it, Sybil. You look too delighted for this to be anything but juicy gossip.” Mercy was a Hollywood success story. Everyone knew it.
Sybil crossed her arms and leaned forward. “She came home with boxes. Lots of boxes.” Sybil’s husband, Bud, worked at the bus depot and shared all the comings and goings of Welcome’s population.
Clay leaned in to glean every nuance of meaning from Sybil’s face. “Out with it,” he repeated.
She licked her lips as if each morsel of gossip was filet mignon. “When Bud asked if he could call her a cab, she said no, she couldn’t afford it.” She hefted a disbelieving sigh and muttered, “Of all the nonsense. So”—she stretched out the word because Sybil loved telling a good story—“Bud called Nate, who showed up half an hour later. Nate didn’t say a word, which, of course, is just like him, and tossed all the boxes into his pickup. Mercy didn’t explain a thing, just looked miserable, Bud said.”
He nodded, at a loss. It still came as a surprise that he was related, if only by marriage, to Mercy Talbot. Welcome High’s golden girl: the blond, beautiful, leggy, and untouchable Mercy Talbot. The Talbot daughter who’d made a real success of her life, unlike the one who’d ruined her life by marrying him, the town hell raiser.
“That Mercy is a real glamour girl. Dilly’s gonna love her. All that prettiness and sunshine wrapped up in one girl.” Sybil sighed as if just knowing Mercy Talbot had somehow blessed her.
At the mention of his daughter, Dilly, Clay frowned. “Mercy won’t be here long,” he said. “Dilly won’t get attached.” Women like Mercy always had an exit strategy and somewhere more important to be.
Mercy Talbot had been as angelically perfect as his wife, Janna, had been hell-bent on personal destruction. Two sisters: impossibly different, forever at odds. He used to wonder if Janna’s darkness was in counterpoint to Mercy’s bright flare. But none of that mattered anymore.
It was Dilly who mattered.
“What child wouldn’t get attached to a beautiful actress?”
A pulse pounded in his temple. He dreaded seeing Dilly’s eyes light up when Mercy played the caring auntie. But she’d barely held Dilly as a baby. He doubted she’d show any interest now.
“I have nothing to worry about,” he told Sybil.
“Still, makes you wonder why she’s back in town.”
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Author Biography
Bonnie Edwards has been writing all her life, starting with a poem about Santa suffering with gout. She was seven, Santa was a thousandteen years old. Delighted with writing, she went on to write family sagas, humorous contemporary romance, romantic suspense, erotic paranormal ghost romances and more.
She may jump around within romance, but all her stories come with a tear, a laugh, and a happy ending. Published by Kensington Books, Harlequin Books, Carina Press, and Robinson (UK) Bonnie’s stories stretch from short stories to novellas and novels. Now, she's happy to be publishing her work herself.
With 40 titles to her credit, she has been translated into several languages and sold books worldwide. Aside from standalone romances, she has 6 romance series that include Christmas romances and beach reads. Contemporary family sagas find a home in Return to Welcome. Learn about more exciting releases and get a free romance by subscribing to her newsletter, Bonnie’s Newsy Bits
Cheers and happy reading!
Bonnie Edwards
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Title Loving Logan Return to Welcome Book 2
Author Bonnie Edwards
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
A standalone single mom (with too many kids and a bad rep) romance that breaks all the rules: he’s younger, wants his own kids, and is the nicest guy in Welcome.
Elle Foster has three rules: Don’t date, don’t sleep with the boss, and don’t believe in happily-ever-after. She left Welcome broke, pregnant, and with a bad-girl rep.
Now, she’s back, still broke, still feisty. With four children, Elle has vowed to never get pregnant again.
Logan Hughes is kindness personified. A real cinnamon bun. Adopted, he wants nothing more than to have a family he created, to see his own eyes looking back at him. But love plays by different rules and Logan’s got it bad for the bad girl.
Can Logan give up fatherhood for the one woman he wants more than life itself?
Excerpt
WELCOME, WA – JUNE 1
Elle Foster’s beater crept to a halt, crunching gravel and sighing with the added exertion of pulling her rented moving trailer. When the engine stopped knocking, she slammed the shifter into park because she needed to slam something. She pasted on a smile, turned to her eldest son, Daniel, and said, “We’re here. My family’s property.” Half of this acreage was hers.
The back half, apparently. Her brother, Clay, had built his new house on the front half.
“Finally,” Jorja said from the back seat.
“I’m hungry,” said Liam. But he always said that, hungry or not. But he probably was. Lunch was a long time ago.
The baby, Clarissa, slumped in her car seat drooling adorably in her sleep.
“Everyone climb out quietly and don’t slam the doors. We don’t want to wake her.”
Once outside in the rain-threatening air, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the front of the car, staring at the sweeping lawn and back deck of her brother’s house. Elle was struck dumb at how different the property looked. No brambles to catch at her skin and clothes. No dark, gloomy trees blocking the sun and the very air. No trash barrels or rusted-out hulks of cars. No pile of beer cans tossed off the deck.
No single-wide rotting from the inside out.
“What’ll we do if Clay’s not here?” Daniel asked.
“We wait.” She could hardly believe the place he’d built for himself and his little girl. First off, she’d almost missed the turn into the driveway because all the overgrown brambles were gone. The front of the lot had been cleared and the house sat in full view of the road, as if the Fosters, finally, had nothing to hide.
A trickle of unease started as she looked around. With the drapes drawn in every window, the house looked closed down. Daniel jumped the two steps up to the deck and peered into a window, cupping his hand around his eyes to see better. “No one here.”
Her resistance to this move had made her balk at calling Clay about their arrival. Also, she needed to keep her phone minutes for emergencies. She’d long ago given up her data plan and had had to switch to pay-as-you-go minutes.
Being out of work with four children had forced her return to Welcome, but being stupid about calling ahead was all on her. Weary, she turned her attention to the backyard. A cedar hedge stretched across the property and delineated the lawn. She could only assume the double-wide Clay had installed for her was on the far side of the hedge. The gravel drive continued and swung to the left just past the six-foot cedars. She thought of climbing into the car and driving to the back lot, but Clarissa woke up, screamed her indignation at finding herself alone in the car, and Jorja opened the back door.
They all needed to stretch their legs and Elle wanted to delay the inevitable until the last possible moment. Once she set foot inside that double-wide, Elle Foster would truly be back in Welcome, a place she’d hoped to never see again.
She squeezed her eyes shut and blew out a breath. Giving her head a brisk shake, she collected the baby from Jorja, swung the diaper bag to her other shoulder, and headed across the lawn toward the back of the lot.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, burglars didn’t bring children to work. Logan Hughes sent a text to his buddy to confirm his suspicions.
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Title Craving Jake Return to Welcome Book 3
Author Bonnie Edwards
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
Returning to Welcome was easy…staying will be a challenge. Especially when someone is determined to drive her out.
Brianna Bowler has returned to her small town of Welcome to help run Bowler’s Dog Rescue. She’s also doing everything she can to set aside thoughts of her high school crush Jake Morrow. Jake appears to be with a perfectly perfect sprite of a woman. (Not that she minds how opposite she and the sprite are. Really, she doesn’t.)
Paramedic Jake Morrow has a woman in his house: she cooks, cleans, clings —and irritates the hell out of him. He’d felt sorry for her, injured, alone and broke, and offered to help. Big mistake.
What would really make Jake’s day? His ex-girlfriend finally moving out. But she won’t take his word for it that things are over.
What’s worse is Brianna Bowler has returned to Welcome. Their shared tragic past and attraction burns between them as Jake accepts that things aren’t quite right with his ex. A break-in at the dog rescue, smashed windows, and a stolen laptop all add up to serious trouble for Jake and Brianna.
But with his ex in the wind and escalating, Jake’s protective instincts rise as events take a deadly turn.
With the love of his life in danger, Jake comes to see that some women can’t be set aside, not even for their own good…but others want revenge.
Excerpt
Chapter One
STALKING WASN’T ALWAYS a bad thing, Brianna Bowler told herself. Not when it happened by accident. Seeing Jake Morrow from afar three times in one month could be called a coincidence, couldn’t it?
But this was the first time she’d seen Jake with his girlfriend. From across the street, Brianna froze in shock as they stood in front of the fire station together.
Jake had always been easy on the eyes and fifteen years hadn’t changed that. Jake had black, untamed curls and deep blue eyes, and if she were close enough she’d see his spiky black eyelashes that looked like inky starbursts. Women would kill for those eyelashes. In fact, they paid swank prices for extensions that looked just like the ones Jake grew on his own. It wasn’t fair.
But she was distracted from the real reason she stood numb and still at the open trunk of her mom’s car.
Jake’s girlfriend was petite and slim and looked like a chirpy little sprite in her skin-tight activewear cropped pants and her kicky cross-trainers. And her dark curling hair made her look like a little sister or cousin. She’d just bet the gorgeous specimen of femininity also had blue eyes.
Not to mention she looked much, much too young for him. Even from across the street and up the block Brianna could see she was a very young twenty-something. Young and fresh and pretty and perfect.
Brianna had already heard they lived together. She tried not to scowl, but Jake should be ashamed of himself. He was over thirty and this girl-child was an entire generation behind.
She shook off her dark emotions and bent to her task. And yes, her chest always clenched when she hefted bags of dog food and dumped them into a car trunk. Her eyes always smarted and her breath always caught.
Four bags later, she dusted the kibble dust off her hands and closed the trunk lid. She studiously kept her eyes away from the fire station’s open front doors, where Jake and his perfect girlfriend stood, probably talking about what to have for dinner together or what shows they’d be binge-watching tonight. The ordinary stuff of lives lived together.
She didn’t miss that part of a relationship, not at all. She’d left Anthony behind in Seattle and he’d been content enough to be left. Whatever they’d shared had run its course and she was free now. Single again, and not looking at Jake Morrow and his cheerful, chirpy child-sized girlfriend.
On stiff legs, she marched to the driver’s side door and climbed inside the car. Slipping on her sunglasses, she sniffed as her side vision caught a quick kiss on Jake’s cheek from the sprite. The woman had to go on tiptoe to do it. Fine. He liked them young and tiny. Everything Brianna wasn’t. As her mom said, Brianna was statuesque, an old-fashioned word for tall and square-shouldered.
Not that it mattered. Not anymore. She was so over her high school crush. Had been for years.
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Title Christmas to the Max A Return to Welcome Novel
Author Bonnie Edwards
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
A stand-alone Return to Welcome Novel: Christmas to the Max brings two charming and romantic series together!
Max Whyte (Love at Christmas) moves to Welcome, WA. (Return to Welcome) Max Whyte moves to Welcome WA to live closer to his daughters after their mother remarries. He wants to fix up an old home, settle into his new position at an IT firm, and try not to think about turning forty alone.
Burned by a single mother in the past, he vows not to get tangled with another woman with children. When he saves the life of a small boy, he finds himself tangled in more ways than he could imagine.
When the boy's mother turns out to be the perfect person to do his renovations, Max has trouble keeping his personal feelings out of their employer/employee relationship.
Kaylin Simpson has returned to Welcome to give her boys the kind of home she wanted as a child. She needs a fresh, stable start and wants to run her own business. Her three-year-old twins keep her hopping, but after she finishes the renovations for Max, she hopes to have her life well in hand.
Max is drawn to Kaylin and her adorable twin boys. Her wit and feisty spirit pull at his heartstrings until he realizes being a stepfather is never what he wanted. Christmas in Welcome can be a time to heal and move forward and Max and Kaylin must set aside their old hurts to allow love to blossom.
Excerpt
Kaylin Simpson loved her twins. She truly, really, did. But some days she could scream until her throat collapsed and they wouldn’t hear a thing. She’d thought two two-year-olds were hard. Having three-year-olds was a brand-new level of hell. They talked back, got stubborn, and were more curious. And taller, stronger, capable of climbing onto chairs and getting into cupboards.
And they were faster.
It was being faster that would kill her one day. Or them. Whatever. Someone would be dead.
Right now, Brody was telling a little girl to go down the slide when she clearly didn’t want to. The poor child looked scared and Brody yelling in her ear wasn’t helping.
“Brody, please let the little girl take a breath so she’s not so scared. And DON’T PUSH!” But he did, and Kaylin dashed for the end of the slide to catch the wailing child.
Too late, she realized she’d taken her other eye off Taylor. She scooped up the girl before she landed on the ground, and then spun her head to scan for her other boy.
There. By the swings. “Taylor! Stop right THERE!” But he didn’t.
No, not her Taylor. He turned his head, glanced at her with a devilish grin and dashed for the road. Chase. He wanted to play chase.
In traffic.
Kaylin set the girl on her feet and ran after Taylor who’d already stepped onto the road. A car took the curve on Cross Street too quickly and Kaylin screamed her boy’s name. Screamed it again. And again…
A man, tall, dark-haired, and with broad shoulders got there just before Taylor ran headlong into the car’s path. Kaylin’s heart stalled and her eyes stung.
Gasping for breath, she nearly collided with the big man who cradled her son in his arms, his large palm covering Taylor’s head in a protective move. Taylor didn’t seem to understand what had happened until he looked up into the stranger’s face.
And screamed blue murder an inch from the man’s nose.
Tires screeched as the driver slammed on the brakes. A woman opened the passenger side window. “Oh, my Lord! Did I hit him?” Her eyes were terror-filled, and her voice trembled.
The man shook his head and seemed to hold tighter to Taylor as he bent toward the opened car window. “No,” he said. “But you took that curve pretty fast.” He didn’t yell it, the way Kaylin wanted to, but he got his point across.
The woman looked shaken and chastened. She eased the car to the curb and rested her head on the steering wheel. She’d been as badly shaken as Kaylin and the stranger.
A sudden screech from behind her had Kaylin spinning to see where it had come from. “Brody! Don’t you dare!”
She snatched Taylor from the stranger’s arms and lumbered under his weight back toward the swings where Brody was attempting to climb onto the big kids’ swing. He’d been complaining for weeks about the baby swings and she wasn’t sure how much longer he’d agree to use them.
She was still shaking over the miss with the car and wanted, more than anything, to get these boys out of this park and home where she could contain them.
If only she had the energy. She let Taylor slide to the ground and clasped his hand firmly as she walked the rest of the way toward the swing set. “We’re going home,” she announced in her most commanding tone, “as soon as I thank that man for saving Taylor’s life.”
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Title Claiming Shandy Return to Welcome Book 4
Author Bonnie Edwards
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
She thought her divorce was final…
Welcome WA, where rumor, gossip, and old grudges endure long past their best before date.
Justin Camden wants his life back. His wife back. His son back. And he’s returned to Welcome to get them. Justin has a plan for the Christmas season and moving in with his ex and his boy is just the beginning.
Shandy Camden is stuck. Her big oaf of an ex-husband has finagled his way into her home for the entire month of December. He claims to want an old-fashioned family Christmas with their son. She’s forced to let Justin stay because refusing will break her son’s heart.
Slowly, Shandy sees that her ex may have another agenda. But she doesn’t believe in the magic of Christmas the way their son does. Helpless and forced to live with her ex, Shandy struggles to overcome her growing attraction to the only man who’s ever left her. The only man she’s ever loved. But Justin left once and if he leaves again, she’ll never recover, and neither will their son…
When the truth comes out, Shandy and Justin may well have discovered that more than anything, Christmas is about love.
Warning: In this husband returns romance, if you don’t want to read a divorced man grovel, then this romance isn’t for you.
Excerpt
Chapter One
December 1 Welcome WA
Justin Camden was no quitter. Never had been and he wasn’t about to give up now. But first he had to do battle against the dragons breathing fire in his gut. He’d never been this scared. Not even at fourteen when his dad caught him out driving his mom’s car at midnight.
He parked outside the Welcome Bar & Grill and called his buddy, Jake Morrow who was inside with a group of friends. Friends who included Justin’s wife, Shandy.
Everything he wanted to accomplish tonight hinged on whatever BS line Jake had come up with. “It’s me. I’m here. What did you tell her?”
In the background, Justin heard happy people greeting each other over the distant sound of a Christmas song. The season had begun. He climbed out of his car while he heard Jake excuse himself to take the call.
“Bedbugs.”
The background noise had receded, but Justin couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
“Every hotel in the area’s infested. Didn’t you know?” Jake said with a smirk in his voice.
“She’ll never believe that.” He had his hand on the brass door pull. Yanked it toward him.
“I believe she does believe me.”
He shook his head. No way. Shandy was the smartest woman he’d ever met and for the past three years, she’d been made of stone. He had to make her crack, but nonsense about bedbugs wouldn’t do it. The flame-thrower in his belly belched. Maybe he should turn around and leave.
“Plus, I told Shandy how much Brianna and I are enjoying our honeymoon period,” Jake was saying. “She can’t force you to stay with us. She has to let you stay at her place. She’ll have no choice.”
“Our place.” The home they’d bought together, to raise their family in. “You ass. Bedbugs?” He was inside the vestibule now, looking through the stained-glass partition, searching the restaurant side of the building. “I see the table.”
Jake stood a few feet away from the group. “Don’t worry, you got this,” he said, looking right at him through the multi-colored pane.
“My best and only shot.” He ended the call, plastered a smile on his face and made his way through the tables to where Shandy sat beside an empty chair. If this crazy bedbug story worked, he’d have a chance to get her angry. He needed her angry.
If she were angry with him, it was a sign that she still cared. That he could still make her feel something for him.
An angry Shandy was honest, and open. Angry Shandy was not a stone angel, cold and remote, the way she’d been for too long. He needed honest and open or his plan to return to Welcome and be the husband and father he wanted to be would fail.
Justin Camden was no quitter. He doused the flames in his gut.
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