Celebrating Seasonal Romance Books #MistletoeHop
Christmas Trees. Holiday Music. Sugar Cookies. Glitter and Bows. And Best Of All… the Mistletoe. Romance books enhance our holiday traditions. Who doesn’t love to cuddle under a warm blanket near a fire place on a cold day and read? Hop around with us to celebrate the best romance books of the season.
Read excerpts from some good books. Enter each of the author contests. Tell us what you like to read during the holidays. Find some new-to-you authors to ring in the New Year with.
I’m featuring an excerpt from my holiday erotic romance, Reindeer Games: Cupid. The question is: what if Santa’s reindeer were shifters? Check out this book to find out!
*****
The next day, Cassius was still berating himself. After making the decision to ask Carina out, things had gone spectacularly wrong. The kettle had barely boiled when she’d shouted to him. He’d gone back into the living room to find her pulling her socks and boots back on. It seemed she’d made her phone call and discovered that one of her colleagues was in the area, and was going to swing by and pick her up right away. In an extra blow of bad luck—in Cassius’ opinion—the colleague also had a trainee with him, so they’d be picking Carina’s van up at the same time, which meant she had no reason to come back.
Ever since he’d closed the door behind them—having signed for Simon’s parcel—he’d been in a spectacularly bad mood. What made it worse was the fact he had nobody to blame but himself. If he’d just asked her out when he’d first thought about it, then things would have been fine, if she’d said yes, of course. If she’d said no, he’d probably still have been in a bad mood, but at least he’d have known either way. Now he was in the unpleasant situation of having found someone he liked—and it had been a long time since that had happened—and having no way to contact them to ask them out and find out if the feeling was mutual.
He was emptying the dishwasher—and slamming the drawers and cupboard doors much harder than necessary—when a knock came at the door. Sighing, he headed towards the front door, ready to give the door-to-door salesman a piece of his mind before pointing at the sign on the lamppost across the street which declared that he lived in a “No Cold Calling Area.” He wasn’t usually the argumentative or confrontational type, but he relished the opportunity to take his mood out on someone.
Flinging the door open, Cassius froze in his ready-to-rant pose.
Carina stood in front of him, smiling shyly and brandishing a jar of Cadbury’s instant hot chocolate and a bag of mini marshmallows.
“Still up for that hot chocolate?” she said, looking hopeful.
Cassius’ awful mood dissipated as if it had never been there. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to any deity that might be listening, then stood back and gestured Carina inside.
She removed her shoes and outerwear in the hallway, then moved into the living room at Cassius’ invitation and sat down. Cassius remained standing.
“So,” he said, realising that in his surprise, he hadn’t actually spoken to her yet, “what brings you here? And how’s the ankle?”
“Much better, thank you. I took your advice and rested up yesterday. I woke up this morning fully intending to call in sick if I was still in pain, but I’m absolutely fine. And to answer your other question, I’m here to say thank you. Things went so fast yesterday that I didn’t get chance to thank you properly, or to have a hot chocolate with you. So I’m here to do both, if that’s okay with you. I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” She looked around, as if looking for evidence of what he’d been doing before she knocked on the door.
If you like the sound of this holiday romance, you can find out more and see the buy links here.
Now onto the giveaway! Use the Rafflecopter to enter, then scroll down to check out the rest of the blogs on the hop.
Happy Holidays!
Lucy x
If you’ve stopped by this site before, particularly last Blissemas, you’ll know I’m not a fan of winter. I don’t like the cold, I don’t like snow and ice, and I can’t stand the shorter days and dark nights. Brr. However, this year I’ve picked up a new hobby that will help me counteract the cold part – knitting! I used to knit when I was younger, but then I stopped and forgot how to do it. I was recently re-taught and I became hooked. So far I’ve knitted teddies for charity, an iPhone case, a Kindle Fire case and some wrist warmers – which are great for when I’m working on the laptop because I can still use the mouse and keyboard easily, but I’m kept nice and toasty. What do you think?
