Everyone knows Harlequin is good for a Christmas themed love story. This year’s contributions do not disappoint. From family drama to a stingy snowed-in Scrooge, there’s something for everyone! Authors you know and love combined with long running series that always pique your interest, check out the books on my Harlequin Christmas Wish List.
A Wedding in December by Sarah Morgan
This is Sarah Morgan at her festive best. A family gathers for Rosie’s whirlwind wedding but they are each keeping a secret. Her parents are on the brink of divorce and his sister might be catching the feels for the best man…
“Christmas is one of the things I need to talk to you about.” Rosie sounded hesitant. “I planned to come home, but since Dan proposed – well, we don’t see the point in waiting. We’ve chosen the day. We’re getting married on Christmas Eve.”
Maggie frowned. “You mean next year?”
“No, this year.”
She counted the days and her brain almost exploded. “You want to get married in less than four weeks? To a man you barely know?” Rosie had always been impulsive, but this wasn’t a soft toy that would be abandoned after a few days, or a dress that would turn out to be not quite the right color.
Marriage wasn’t something that could be rectified with a refund. There was no reason for haste, unless – “Sweetie – “
“I know what you’re thinking, and it isn’t that. I’m not pregnant! We’re getting married because we’re in love. I adore him. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
You barely know him.
Maggie shifted, uncomfortably aware that knowing someone well didn’t inoculate you against problems. “I’m excited for you!” Turned out she could fake excitement as convincingly as she could fake calm.
An Alaskan Christmas by Jennifer Snow
How does a workaholic take a ski vacation? Reluctantly, that’s how! Her best friend runs a tour company and schedules the time of her life. An Alaskan Christmas also give us a fun “best friend’s brother” trope with a touch of opposites attract!
Erika clamped her lips together again, forcing her argument to stay put. It wouldn’t do any good.
Three years working alongside her father and she’d yet to prove herself. Despite two back-to-back improbable surgeries that she’d performed successfully, he still doubted her abilities. His micromanagement over her research team had driven her insane, but he’d reluctantly agreed to let her run her own set of clinical trials on the antirejection drug, and she’d foolishly believed she was making progress with him.
Now she was being forced into taking a break.
What the hell was a break? She hadn’t had one since starting university. She’d graduated with her bachelor’s in three years instead of four by doubling up on courses and then had applied directly to med school. She’d interned at Alaska General and secured a position there shortly after graduation. She couldn’t remember the last day she had off, let alone…she glanced at the letter. Two weeks?
What the hell would she do with all that free time?
Christmas in Silver Springs by Brenda Novak
This one will keep you on your toes. Harper’s ex ditched her, and their two kids just as his rockstar status started to rise. She goes back home to regroup, lick her wounds and figure out the rest of her life. She doesn’t count on meeting a soulful man that offers her a sweet shoulder to cry on. Neither of them are prepared for the chemistry that erupts! Of course Harper’s ex shows back up to throw cement in the mix.
Harper hadn’t put on makeup for weeks, hadn’t done anything with her hair, either, other than to pile it in a messy bun on her head, so it didn’t bother her that it was raining. She was cold, thought; couldn’t seem to get warm. Tightening her oversize coat – a castoff of Axel’s from the good old days when they were first married – she pushed out of the warm café into the bad weather.
Putting her head down, she stared at her feet, bracing against the gusts of wind that whipped at her hair and clothes while stepping over two or three puddles to reach the Range Rover Axel had let her keep when they split. If she got desperate, she supposed she could sell it. It had cost a pretty penny.
She was opening the driver’s door when she noticed a tall, lanky man with longish dark hair crossing the lot toward her.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, lifting one hand in a gesture intended to show he wasn’t being aggressive. “I just…I saw you inside and…”
Prepared to rebuff him, she set her jaw. She was not in the mood to be hit on. But when she met his eyes, something about his expression told her that wasn’t what this was about.
Taking a long-stemmed white rose from inside his coat, he stepped forward to give it to her.
“Hang in there. It’ll get easier,” he said. The he walked off before she could even ask for his name.
Christmas from the Heart by Sheila Roberts
A Christmas tale centering around the woman running a charitable foundation in need of funds and the Scrooge businessman that just cut off her biggest donation. I mean, what’s a Scrooge to do when his family business is in trouble, you can’t give what you don’t have. Scrooge, I mean Guy ends up stuck in the snowbound town of Pine River and is rescued by none other than Olivia, our charity loving heroine. Guy struggles to keep his identity secret from the woman he’s falling in love with. What could possibly go wrong?
Guy Hightower frowned when he saw the email from Olivia Berg in his in-box. Marla Thompson had been forwarding her emails to him, keeping him abreast of Olivia Berg’s varied begging tactics, and had finally even come into his office, trying to dump the load of guilt the woman had laid on her from her shoulders to his.
“Done open it,” he told himself. He opened it anyway. Then he read it and swore.
Actually, he’d been swearing ever since meeting with his brothers to discuss the budget back in December. If either of them had listened to him three years ago, they wouldn’t be having to pull the company belt so tight now. This was the problem with being the youngest. It didn’t matter how many degrees you had, how smart you were or what your job title was. Big brothers never listened.
Hard to listen when you were going through your third divorce.
That was Mike’s excuse. What was Bryan’s? Oh yeah. He was a wuss. He always agreed with Mike, no matter what. And Mike hadn’t wanted to change directions. Never mind that the company was struggling, keep on doing the same thing. The definition of insanity.
Sorry, Little Miss Christmas. Times were tough all over. Hightower had kept its commitment to the more visible causes and turned the little fish loose. And that was how it worked in the corporate world.
He typed his rely.
Dear Ms. Berg, I regret that Hightower can’t help you this year. We’ve had to reassess our commitments to various causes. I’m sure you’ll understand.
Then he signed off with the time-honores adios: Respectfully, Guy Hightower.
Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne
Elizabeth was trapped in a cycle of PPD and grief and then a car accident takes her memory. Her husband and children think she’s gone even though her body was never found. Seven years later, they are reunited and Elizabeth slowly gets her memories back while setting up to celebrate Christmas. This is definitely a couple in need of a second chance, when the first one was taken from them by an accident.
This was it.
Luke Hamilton waited outside the big, rambling Victorian house in a little coastal town in Oregon, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat against the wet slap of air and nerves churning through him.
Elizabeth was here. After all the years when he had been certain she was dead – that she had wandered into the mountains somewhere that cold day seven years earlier or she had somehow walked into the deep, unforgiving waters of Lake Haven – he was going to see her again.
Though he had been given months to wrap his head around the idea that his wife wasn’t dead, that she was indeed living under another name in this town by the sea, it still didn’t seem real.
How was he supposed to feel in this moment? He had no idea. He only knew he was filled with a crazy mix of anticipation, fear and the low fury that had been simmering inside him for months, since the moment FBI agent Elliot Bailey had produced a piece of paper with a name and an address.
Luke still couldn’t quite believe she was in there, the wife he had not seen in seven years. The wife who had disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving plenty of people to speculate that he had somehow hurt her, even killed her.
For all those days and months and years, he had lived with the ghost of Elizabeth Sinclair and the love they had once shared.
Cowboy Christmas Redemption by Maisey Yates
This is number eight in her Gold Valley series. Caleb has been caring for his dead best friend’s family for years. Friendly feelings have grown into more, maybe they’ve even been there all along. It’s a lot for both Caleb and Ellie to unpack. Ellie’s Christmas wish is a kiss under the mistletoe and Caleb will move heaven and earth to make sure he’s the one granting that wish for her.
Caleb Dalton hadn’t had much to smile about for a long time. It had been a bear of a few years, since his best friend’s death, and while time might eas a wound, it wouldn’t ever bring Clint back. But that permanence made space for movement, around the grief, around the pain. And finally toward a future he’d been planning for a long time.
Clint had been, honest to God, one of the best men on earth. The hole he’d left behind had been huge, and Caleb had dedicated himself to caring for his friend’s widow and child in his absence.
That had been his life, his whole life, for nearly five years. And it was fir, because it had been Ellie’s life, too.
He cared for Ellie. A hell of a lot. He’d met her because of Clint, but she’d been in his life for more than ten year.
His feelings for Ellie were complicated. Had been from the beginning. But she’d been with Clint. And there was no doubt Clint was the better man. More than that, Clint was his brother. Maybe not in blood, but in every way that counted.
