Christmas Countdown Blitz: MISS DASHWOOD'S DILEMMA by Arabella Sheraton

 

Arabella Sheraton grew up on a diet of Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and many other writers of that period. From Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer, Arabella has found both enjoyment and inspiration in sparkling, witty Regency novels. She also loves history and generally finds the past more fascinating than the future. Arabella wrote her first Regency romance to entertain her aged mom who loved the genre. Arabella is honoured to share the adventures of her heroes and heroines with readers.

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In this delightful traditional Regency romance, Miss Diana Dashwood accepts an invitation to Lady Prescott's Christmas party at Camden House, in the countryside. But things do not go quite as she imagined. 

Through an unexpected event, she is forced to spend the night in a woodsman's hut with one of the guests. What a scandal! 

Of course, Sir Gareth Blakely must propose, and he does. Unfortunately, Miss Diana Dashwood has already been engaged to and broken off her engagement from Sir Gareth Blakely after a bitter quarrel. Is it likely she will bow to social pressure and accept his proposal, one made only to save her reputation, and if they marry, does their union stand a chance of survival?And what about the pretty heiress, Miss Jemima Plymstock, whom everyone thinks is the lady Sir Gareth had his eye upon? Headstrong and proud, Miss Diana Dashwood is caught in a dreadful dilemma. A must-read for Regency fans!

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Top Ten List:

1. Museums and art galleries. Believe it or not, these can be very inspiring.

2. Animals – I share animal rescue stories on Twitter and Facebook and sign every petition that crosses my path. I also contribute monthly to two animal rescue charities.

3. The countryside – I live in the countryside now and it has changed my whole perspective on life. Open skies and green fields make walking with my dog a lovely experience.

4. Books – maybe that should be at the top? I love books of all kinds and very much enjoy non-fiction as well. I have some new empty bookshelves so I am working on filling them.

5. Research for my books. This can be so absorbing I sometimes find a few hours have passed and I have been lost in history and done a lot of research but no writing.

6. Dinner parties – I love having small dinner parties with guests who enjoy good food, good wine, and lots of good conversation.

7. Antiques – I have inherited a lot from my great-grandmother and grandmother so being surrounded by beautiful antique furniture and ornaments is all quite normal for me. I also feel they help me get into the mood for my forays into the past.

8. Movies and TV series – I love BBC classic series such as adaptations of Jane Austen’s works. But I also love mystery/thriller and crime series. Disaster movies are my thing!

9. Tea – I love tea, all kinds of tea. I cannot start the day without my pot of morning tea. I enjoy going to a tea room where you can have a delicious English afternoon tea with scones, small cakes and other yummy treats.

10. Desserts – simply the best part of the meal. My ultimate dessert is Crème Brulee, then Tiramisu, and next is home made ice cream.

  

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Christmas Countdown Blitz: GIFT OF RESTITUTION by Zina Abbott

My name is Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is the pen name I use for my American historical romance novels. I’m a member of Women Writing the West and Western Writers of America, and American Night Writers Association. I currently live with my husband in California’s central valley near the “Gateway to Yosemite.”

I love to read, quilt, work with digital images on my photo editing program, and work on my own family history.

I am a blogger. In addition to my own blog, I blog for several group blogs including the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog, which I started and administer.

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The gift of peace of spirit that comes from restitution.

A year after Luke McDaniels broke away from the control of two eastern Sierra Nevada Mountain outlaws and freed Ling Loi from the Chinese brothel in Lundy, one aspect of their escape still plagues his conscience. Even though he made a point to take only what was owed him, and he left sufficient funds to cover the cost of anything he took from others without the owners’ knowledge or consent, there had been one exception. 

 

The ten gold half-eagles he allowed was less than the value of the one available to him. He hated short-changing the owner, but Loi, who took on the name of Joy when they married, had been his first priority.

     

Joy, grateful she has been restored to the way of decency, senses that Luke needs his own restoration. Can she convince him to do what he must to enjoy peace at Christmas? 

  

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Top Ten List:

Ten Fun Christmas Facts about Zina Abbott

1.  My favorite Christmas carol is O Holy Night.

2.  My favorite Christmas decoration is a nativity scene including angel, shepherd, and three wise men.

3.  In second grade I made a lamb tree ornament out of a paper background, crayon eyes, nose, mouth, and hooves, and small cotton balls glued all over the body. This was before commercial cotton balls were sold. We used bulk cotton and rolled the small balls by hand. The paper and cotton are now yellowed with age, but I still have that ornament.

4.  I prefer green over red.

5.  As a child, each Christmas Eve my brother, sister, and I prepared a Christmas program we performed for our parents. We read the Luke 2 story of the birth of Christ, recited “’Twas the Night before Christmas,” maybe shared some other short poems and stories, and we sang Christmas songs. We used our raised hearth as our stage. After, we had refreshments my mother had prepared, we opened one Christmas gift each which she picked out for us—usually pajamas or slippers.

6.  When I started getting too much “give me, give me—I want” from my teenage children, I switched to blue, gold, and silver and put more focus on the birth of Christ instead of the red and green Santa ho-ho part of the holiday. (Please don’t send me articles about how red, green and other things we associate with Santa Claus, et al, have religious symbolism. I’ve read them.) The one non-nativity decoration my children asked me to bring back was a Christmas tree, which I did.

7.  I learned once my children became teenagers, the best gift in the world for them was gift cards. I took them shopping at the after-Christmas sales. The stuff they bought was always the right style, size, and color because they picked it out.

8.  When I was about two or three, my father, a very talented wood craftsman, built a wooden clothes rack in the shape of a giraffe for me that Christmas. He painted it white with yellow spots, although I recall the body, which was a flat bench/shelf, was brown. The horns were clothes hooks. We called it Jo-Jo Giraffe. It probably was only about four to five feet high, but to me at the time, it was HUGE!

9.  For many years, my favorite Christmas music album was The Messiah by Handel.

10.  Before that, I was rather fond of a Christmas album performed by Elvis Presley.

  

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Christmas Cowntdown Blitz: REBEKAH'S QUILT by Sara Harris

Sara Harris makes her home with her family of seven, which includes her romance novelesque husband and her five children. 

She holds her BA in history and is currently back in school seeking her BSN.  

  

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An Amish settlement. An English stranger. The Blizzard of 1888. Who can Rebekah trust when the line between the Amish and the English becomes blurred?

A sweet and gentle love blossoms between Rebekah Stoll and her childhood friend Joseph Graber, despite attempts by her saucy nemesis, Katie Knepp, to sway the young man's affections her way. 

When Joseph hints at the promise of forever, Rebekah is positive she should say yes to his proposal - until a mysterious English stranger shows up at her homestead and sets everything she thought she knew about her world on end. 

 

  

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Top Ten List:

1. Sara is a certified teacher in Texas.

2. She taught General Ed and Special Education.

3. 6th grade is her favorite grade to teach. 

4. She recently began going to nursing school. 

5. She will earn her BSN in 2022. 

6. She loves Christmas music and turns it on as early as possible.

7. She homeschools her three youngest boys. 

8. In their Catholic classical academy, her boys are learning Latin. And Greek.  

9. Her favorite Saints are Irena Sendler, Max Kolbe, Francis of Assisi, and St. Jude. 

10. Her oldest child is 16 which makes Sara 29 . . . for the 9th time.

  

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Book Blitz: SECOND SURVIVORS by Leah Moyes

Leah Moyes is from Arizona but experienced many parts of the world in thanks to a career in the airlines. Now most of her time, aside from writing, is spent with her family, reading Historical Fiction novels or studying ancient cultures as a student of Archaeology.

She always believed she was born in the wrong time period, but since she doesn’t have access to a time machine she must write and read intriguing stories of the past. 

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Her secret sank with the ship.

Isabel Fontaine’s lavish lifestyle came to a crashing halt the night the General Chanzy sank. At 18, she had everything—fine luxuries, a prominent family, and an extravagant estate in Marseille. The one thing she didn’t have was her freedom. As the sole heir to the Fontaine fortune, her future was forged with a betrothal to a stranger from a foreign country, but when her family perishes at sea, Isabel sees this as a chance to hide her identity and change her fate.

Taken in by poor, elderly farmers on the Spanish island of Menorca, Isabel is torn between the growing affection for a neighbor and the guilt of living a lie. The simplicity and genuine goodness of this life takes her on a journey she never believed was possible, yet, as time passes and the threat of her untruths face exposure, Isabel must make an agonizing choice.

When that choice is taken from her prematurely and danger cultivates from an implausible guise, will Isabel accept the outcome, or fight to save those she loves?

Second Survivor is a heart-wrenching historical fiction novel set in both Algiers, Algeria during French occupation and Menorca, Spain. Told in the perspective of four characters, Second Survivor is a twist on the tragic shipwreck . . . the General Chanzy in the Mediterranean Sea. 156 people aboard the barge lost their lives on the morning of 10 February 1910. There was only one survivor. This story shares the fate of a Second Survivor.

  

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Snippet:

Second Survivor is told in the perspective of 4 different people- Isabel, Miguel, Thomas, and Francisco.

(Francisco)

“I must be off. I have several families to visit.”

“Well, I’m sure you have time to say hi to Maria before you go.”

“Maria . . . that’s right. With all the work at the ranch, I had nearly forgotten her plight.”

“She would be delighted to see you.” Anita winked and pointed inside.

“Senyora Contreras . . . ” I gave her a stern brow.

“What?” She threw her hands up, feigning innocence. “Just come say hello,” she huffed.

“She doesn’t know me, Anita, and don’t be conjuring up any tricks.”

“Yet, she somehow remembers you.” Anita’s mouth twisted up in satisfaction as she led me through the front door.

“Of course, I will say hi. It would be rude of me not to.” I entered the kitchen. A young woman sat near the stove with her back toward me. It was nice to see she was no longer bound to her bed. She must be recovering well.

“Hello, Maria.”

She swung around and faced me, although her tiny nose pulled into a wrinkle. “Ugghh.” She groaned loudly, her fingers fighting the long-pointed tips of knitting needles. Yarn lay tangled in her lap while strings wound all through her fingers. The ball rolled off her knees and thumped to the floor. I chuckled, but when she glanced up, my mouth fell open.

Her eyebrows bent in anger. “Are you laughing at me?” Her tone came sharp, but I barely heard her. My mind whirled at the transformation before me. Images of the swollen, bruised, and broken woman I’d seen a month ago vanished into something else. I couldn’t form words. The large cut on her forehead was now a faint, jagged line, pink tinged her cheeks, and her blond waves flowed easily and cleanly down her back. She wore a simple oversized dress that most likely had been Anita’s at one time, and a torn shawl around her shoulders, but she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

“No,” I choked apologetically, “I’m not laughing . . . I know nothing of knitting.”

Her face softened. “I have no idea why I even try it myself. I’m awful.”

“At least you are trying. I couldn’t even get that far.” I kneeled and picked up the wayward ball. When I handed it back to her, I found myself staring.

 

 

  

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Book Blitz: CONNER'S CONTRARY BRIDE by Barbara Goss

 

Barbara Goss lives in Western New York and to date has written 48 Christian and/or Sweet Romance books, mostly westerns. She enjoys crossword puzzles, penny slots, reading, swimming, and her two cats, but not necessarily in that order. She tries to write exciting stories with a bit of God's word spread within, without dominating the story.

Barbara began writing in 1988 and her first book, Forbidden Legacy, won first prize for fiction at a Christian Writers Convention in Titusville, Florida in 1989. This won her a book contract with Publishers: Fleming Revell and later Baker Books. She wrote four books for them under contract. She then took a few years off to work full time as a secretary to the county hospital and the local school system.

Barbara's greatest influence in writing is the 100 books written by Grace Livingston Hill. As a Christian writer, she weaves a bit of godliness into the romance and adventure yet her books are always clean. Barbara is well on her way to catching up to Ms. Livingston.

She is now turning her wonderful e-books into Audiobooks. Look for them on Amazon. 

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Beauty of love is that you can fall into it with the most unexpected person at the most unexpected time.

Dr. Connor Beauregard Van Gates the IV, of Hays City, Kansas, and Elsie Crenshaw of Gobbler's Knob, West Virginia, use a successful matchmaker to bring them together by using questionnaires to sort out their likes and dislikes. However, a CATastrophe occurs and things get very mixed up.

The couple has so many differences that Connor is caught rolling his eyes often. What has he done?

Will it take a band of heartless bank robbers and a lecherous step-father to finally bring them together?

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Snippet:

     Dr. Sawyer had settled Agatha in bed while continuing to monitor her heart rate and pulse.

     “Will Grandmother be all right?” Maggie asked.

     The doctor shook his head. “It looks like apoplexy. I’ve seen it a few times.”

     “What’s apoplexy? Can you fix it?”

      “Doctors aren’t one hundred percent sure, but we think it’s brain-related, and I can’t fix it, unfortunately. I’ve seen cases where the patient improved somewhat, but I doubt she’ll ever recuperate completely. She’s still unconscious, but I can tell by her sagging face she’s lost control of her whole right side.”

     Maggie twisted her fingers. “Is there anything we can do?”

     “Just let her rest, and pray for her recovery.”

     “But she needs to get her matches out. The people have already paid for the service.  What should I do?”

     Dr. Sawyer shrugged. “I know nothing about that. Maybe you could finish up for her. It would take your mind off her illness.”

     “I’ve watched her do it plenty of times, but I wish she could advise me about the details.”

     “I’m afraid that’s impossible.” The doctor stood. “I’ll come back every day and let you know how she’s doing. Send for me if she gets worse.”

 

      After the doctor left, Maggie sat and held her grandmother’s limp hand. “I’ll find a way. I know I can’t match them as well as you can, but I’ll do my best. The first thing I’ll do is cancel next month’s newspaper ad. I’d like to learn the business, but I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”

     Maggie stood with a determined look. “I can do it! I don’t want you to worry. I’ll start on it right away. I’m young and eager—I’ll match them all again.”

     Maggie kissed her grandmother’s forehead and said, “Of course, I can. I’m your granddaughter, after all.”

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