A Christmas Dream (Hudson House Holiday, #1)

A Christmas Dream (Hudson House Holiday, #1) By Shanna Hatfield
Publication date: November 14, 2024
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance
Summary:

He came to build the house of his dreams, but found a home for his heart.

After an extensive search for the ideal location to build a house he’s spent years designing, Brant Hudson knows he’s found the perfect site the moment he sets foot on the land near Silver Bluff, Oregon. However, frustrating delays leave him laboring alongside the very crew he hired to finish the house in time for Christmas. His work leads the woman who catches his eye to believe he’s a carpenter rather than the owner of the grand manor.

Holland Drake grew up on a farm, but she aspires to secure a position as a housemaid at Hudson House. While delivering lunch to her brother at the worksite, the door opens to a job when Holland encounters a strikingly handsome carpenter whose charm captivates her. Soon, Holland discovers the enchanting man is none other than the owner of the house and her new employer.

As the holiday season arrives amid a flurry of excitement and possibilities, Holland and Brant face choices that could change their lives forever. Will fear hold them back from stepping into the future together, or will their Christmas dreams of love come true?

A Christmas Dream is the first book in the Hudson House Holiday series of wholesome, heartwarming Christmas romances full of the joy of the season.

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EXCERPT:

Another thirty minutes passed, during which time Brant envisioned thick slices of smoky ham encased between fluffy biscuits hot from the oven as he worked. He was just about to suggest to Remington they take a break for the noon meal when a woman as pretty as any Brant had ever encountered breezed into the room carrying a large basket covered with a blue-checkered cloth.

“Denver! I thought I’d never find you in this colossus of a house. I saw Colin outside, and he said you were in the library, but so much has changed since the last time I was in here, I thought I might wander around lost until you starved to death.” The woman’s gaze shifted from the carpenter on the second floor, taking in Brant and Remington as they hastily stood. “Oh, hello.”

It’s Mother-Pucking Christmas!

It’s Mother-Pucking Christmas! By Alina Jacobs
Publication date: November 21, 2024
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance
Summary:

When your grandmother stalks the star hockey player on the rival team because “You need a husband, Dakota—you’re not getting any younger!” it’s Christmas crazy on ice.
It is not, however, the start of our great love story.
I don’t date guys on that team.
He doesn’t do casual, drunken hookups, which is all the captain of the Icebreakers is getting from moi.

I give him the finger and tell him I hope he loses his teeth out there.
He smirks and wins the game because both this Christmas season and this hockey season are a fucking scam.

Then my younger, much dumber brother informs me that he owes his bookie a bunch of money and really needs the Icebreakers to lose their next game, and could I pretty please be an amazing big sis and date their captain then break his heart so he’ll suck and lose the game—otherwise little bro will get killed, or worse, our mom will find out.

As much as I eye roll my overly large, overly loud family, I’d do anything for them.
Including date the captain of the Icebreakers.

Barf.
Ryder is a Boy Scout. He doesn’t swear. He uses words like ma’am and sir. On our date, he opens my door, pulls out my chair, and helps me with my coat. He even volunteers at the local animal shelter and loves handmade sweaters.
No, it is not cute! Three warm, gooey cinnamon rolls dressed up as a six-five, hot AF hockey player are not my type.
At all.
Nope.

Santa better bring me something nice this Christmas for all my pain and suffering!

In bed though?
Let’s just say sleeping with the captain of the Icebreakers… is not going to be a problem.

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EXCERPT:

“You’re stalking my client,” Hudson yelled at the old woman, who was completely unfazed by his anger.

My teammates’ eyes bugged out like the pugs’, then they all collapsed, howling with laughter, at my feet. Even Coach snickered into his gloves.

“You’re the Crusher?” My mouth dropped open. “You’re the one who’s been stalking me for the last five months?”

“Stalker? Pshaw!” Granny Murray was offended. “I’m not stalking anyone.”

Inked in Blood and Memory

Inked in Blood and Memory By Allison Ivy
Publication date: December 3, 2024
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Horror, LGBTQ+, New Adult
Summary:

Recluse Sophie Vanguard’s winter cabin retreat turns ominous when blue flowers mysteriously appear. They’re everywhere. On her front porch, in kitchen cabinets, and even on her pillow. It isn’t long before chilling whispers echo in the halls, and her journal repeats seven unsettling entries.

Enter the bloodied and beautifully eccentric Ly Thi Ren. Though Ren seems familiar, Sophie refuses to believe the girl’s insistence that they are trapped inside a book.

In a land of fiction, truth and lies blur together, clear decisions are marred by doubt, and shared family trauma lurks just below the surface.

Can Ren and Sophie make it out alive? Or will they end up nothing more than words inked in blood and memory?

With elements of gothic horror, splatterpunk, romance, and fantasy, Inked in Blood and Memory is a self-aware LGBTQ+ horror that wraps its clutches around the reader and doesn’t let go.

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EXCERPT:

You never forget your first ritual sacrifice. So why had I? That seems like something you’d remember. It’s not something most American families gather for.

Hey, Má. Could you pass the rau răm? Oh, and what time is the sacrifice tonight?

And yet, I had forgotten. I had forgotten the little things, too. My mother’s laugh, her abrupt chortles that often devolved into giggles. My childhood nickname.

My Only Friend, the End

My Only Friend, the End By Steven Owad
Publication date: December 2, 2024
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Literary Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic
Summary:

Everyone in town has dropped dead. Maybe everyone everywhere has. Surviving the flash extinction was easy. The hard part—living alone—starts now.

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EXCERPT:

I spent the next two days nursing a chill fever and watching the fires engulf pockets of the city—more slowly than you might expect, with prodigious walls of steam wherever fire met the Missouri floodwaters. Despite the vivid show, there was something anticlimactic about the way the town died so gradually after everyone in it had died so fast.

The amoxicillin and painkillers aided the convalescence, but they did nothing for my mental health. Whether awake or asleep, I obsessed over my wife and son. I also immersed myself in a sea of questions that had no answers, questions that begat other questions, borne of illness of the body and mind. Some of the more obvious ones:

Murder at Pelican Lake (Marjorie Mathison Hance)

Murder at Pelican Lake (Marjorie Mathison Hance) By Beth Ford
Publication date: September 10, 2024
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Cozy Mystery
Summary:

When 34-year-old Carley Norgren loses her high-profile job and her partner in the span of a few short months, she returns to the place that feels most like home – her childhood cabin on Pelican Lake, Minnesota. 

She hadn’t been back since her father’s death from a heart attack two years earlier. When a teenager is abducted, it becomes clear that her once-sleepy lake community has its share of secrets – and someone who will kill to keep them hidden.

In this almost-cozy mystery, one small community learns that the view from the dock isn’t always what it seems. This book is the first book of the North Lakes Murder Mystery Series.

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EXCERPT:

PROLOGUE

Monday

Three men sat in a large white van parked on the road bordering Long Lake, watching three teenage girls spill out of a school bus. The light breeze off the lake and the scent of lilacs in the air were a sharp contrast to the sweat and grease inside the vehicle. The girls walked up the road, laughing and shoving each other playfully. One of the men said, pointing, “That’s her. The one on the left with long brown hair.” The other two nodded.

The orange school bus accelerated in the distance and disappeared into the bright blue sky, leaving the three girls in its wake. They lived four blocks from each other in Vergas, Minnesota. Friends since kindergarten, now they were sophomores at Frazee High School, about eight miles away. Eleanor leaned into Lindsey. “Hey. I saw Paul today.”