Christmas is around the corner and I am a huge holiday movie fan. Not the Hallmark channel movies, but the kind you see first in a movie theater with a tub of heart attack-inducing popcorn, a soda big enough to cause kidney failure, and enough candy to put you in a hyperglycemic crisis.
I typically watch the same holiday movies every year when they roll around on television, this year, no different.
In no real order, these are my all-time favorite Christmas/Holiday movies.
LOVE, ACTUALLY
DIE HARD ( do not argue with me about this. IMHO this is a holiday movie)
Calling all holiday-themed readers! We’re celebrating Christmas and the holidays all month long at N. N. Light’s Book Heaven’s Christmas and Holiday Book Festival. 30 holiday-themed books featured plus a chance to win a $75 Amazon gift card.
I’m thrilled to be a part of this event. My book, FIXING CHRISTMAS, is featured TODAY.
So, this is the second fo my four trees. Wherever we go on vacation I usually buy an ornament of the location. When Erin was in college and traveled she would buy one for me. I hang them every year on our “travels Tree,” and I’ll be spotlighting a few of the newer one andy favs in the next few days.
So just approved the galley edits for my upcoming Magnolia Blossom book It’s Witch O’Clock somewhere. I lovedlovedloved writing this first lovers/reunited story about a witch and former teenage bad boy-turned-good guy. I’ve just seen the cover and it’s beautiful! I’ll share when I’m allowed to, heehee.
Twenty years ago, Barstone bad-boy Declan Wolffe, rode out of town on his motorcycle leaving the town that looked down on his family, and the only girl he’d ever loved, in his rearview mirror.
But now he’s back. Rich, successful, and determined, he’s got plans for the town. And for the girl he left behind.
Gigi Gordon has made a successful life for herself in Barstone as a real estate agent. No one but those closest to her knows she’s a 10th-generation witch and she wants to keep it that way. Her life is disrupted, though, when the boy who stole her heart rides back into town with a plan to shake things up.
Declan may have plans, but Gigi has a few of her own. The biggest one? Protecting her heart.
And now…a little teaser:
“I’m so mad I could spit.” Gigi slammed her briefcase down on her desk. “Or worse. Hit something. Anything.”
“I’m taking it the meeting didn’t go well?” her secretary, Kathy said, wincing at the force with which Gigi’s bag hit the ancient desk.
“It was actually going great until the so-called developer showed up.”
Eyes wide, Kathy stood and moved to the coffee bar. “You look like you need a cup of tea. And Weber was actually there?”
“Not his name. It’s the company’s.” Gigi plopped down into her chair and closed her eyes as she dug deep down for some semblance of calm and peace. The light incident was worrisome since she hadn’t had an outburst manifesting itself physically in years. Not since…
Don’t go there. You’ll only get all riled up again.
“So who is he?” Kathy asked as she poured hot water over the jasmine leaves Gigi kept in the office. When it was done, she handed it to her.
Gigi sighed before taking her first sip. As the warmth of the calming tea steeped within her, she looked over the top rim of the cup and said, “Declan Wolffe.”
“Holy shit. D.C. Wolffe’s back in town?”
Since her reaction upon seeing him had been the same, she understood her secretary’s outburst.
“Unfortunately. And he’s the one proposing to modernize the downtown.”
“Weber was his mom’s maiden name, wasn’t it?” she asked, squinting off into the distance. “The business name makes sense, then.” She speared her boss with a quizzical eyelift. “He still drop-dead gorgeous?”
“Also, unfortunately.”
Goddess. How she wished he’d turned old and fat and bald.
“Why is that?” Kathy asked. “It’s so unfair men get better looking and we…don’t.” She glanced down at herself, shook her head.
“Stop. You’re just as gorgeous as you were in high school. More.”
Kathy rolled her eyes. “Says the girl with the lavender eyes and the body of a Hollywood bombshell.”
I was Gigi’s turn to roll her eyes.
Kathy shook her head again and sat back down at her desk with a sigh. “D.C. Wolffe, Barstone’s very own bad boy, back in town. Talk about a prodigal. I thought for sure we were in his rearview mirror for life. Who’d’a thunk we’d ever live to see this day?”
Not Gigi, that was for sure. Although she knew, intimately knew, the bad boy persona and rep was wrong and foisted on him once upon a time by a town that didn’t take kindly to people who were different. Again, another fact she had intimate and firsthand knowledge of.
On that summer day long ago when she’d watched the back end of his motorcycle shoot away from her as she stood in her front yard with tears streaming down her face, she thought she’d never see him again.
More to come when I’ve got a cover and a release date to share!
So, I got married on December 26th. I know…don’t bother telling me how crazy I was.
Hubby to be was already living in Wisconsin but was coming home for a few days for us to get hitched and then we were going to fly back to WI. Someone at the clinic asked him if he was going to put up a Christmas tree as a surprise for when I returned with him. He never even thought to.
Serendipity is an amazing thing because the very next day, as he was passing the Goodwill box he passed every single day on the way to work, there, sticking out of it, was a 7-foot tree with all the trimming. So, he took it back to his apartment and it was waiting for me when I came to my new home.
This ornament was made by one of the people he worked with at the time to commemorate the event.
One-click authors are, for me, heaven on earth! Whenever I see one of their names scroll down my feed or across my coming-soon link on Goodreads, I immediately click the book to order it without even reading the blurb. These authors are always consistent in the quality of their writing and the beauty of their romance stories. Whenever I read one of their books, everything else in my life fades away because I just can’t stop reading the story. Laundry doesn’t get done, dinner is late, and sometimes I forget to get dressed for the day. (this is okay since I work from home, heehee)
In no real order, just how they popped into my head, here are my top 10 contemporary romance authors I think you should know and read.
From the time I was 6 until I turned 9 I asked Santa for rock’em sock’em robots every year. I never got it. My mother finally said, look, Santa doesn’t give boy gifts to girls and that gift is a boy gift.
I was devastated.
Flash forward 2.5 decades and I am telling this story around the dinner table at my in-laws when someone asked what was the most disappointing Christmas gift you ever got or never got.
They all agreed I got sold out by a stereotype Santa.
Christmas morning we all wake up and there’s a gift under the tree for me. I unwrapped it and burst into tears. Yup. Rock’em sock’em robots.
