We have an interesting line up today. Nothing too serious, I don’t think so anyway. No murders and dead bodies this time. A number of new authors for us too.

First up, BookBub has a Christmas offering for us. We’ve seen Dan Walsh often lately.

Keeping Christmas

For the first time since their children were born, empty nesters Judith and Stan Winters spent Thanksgiving alone, without the kids and grandkids. It’s looking like Christmas will be the same.

Judith can hardly bear the thought and struggles even to decorate the house. But soon some wonderful and totally unexpected events turn things completely around, starting with that box of “ugly ornaments” (as Stan calls them). Could they be the key to rescuing their Christmas this year?

A “beautifully written story” for the holiday season, or any time of the year.

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LPC Free Books has a suggestion for us. Tis the season for Christmas stories. This is an author we have not seen so this will be a surprise.

The Ornament Keeper: A Novella

Award-winning author Eva Marie Everson wraps up a Christmas story of hope, love, and forgiveness just in time for the holidays. 

The Ornament Keeper, a contemporary Christmas novella, features Felicia and Jackson Morgan who are spending their first Christmas apart after twenty years of marriage. But a lifetime of gifted ornaments helps Felicia piece together the story of their marriage and the one mistake of unforgiveness she made before they said, “I do.”

Can these memory-filled ornaments reunite this family before Christmas? Only time will tell.

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Browsing, I discovered an offering from an author new to me. It’s always nice to meet someone for the first time.

Promise Kept (Harland Creek Series Book 1)

Lying on her job application wasn’t the best way to kick off her fresh start in a small town, but Heather Smith is out of options. She desperately needs the job, or she will soon be without a place to live. Even so, Heather truly likes Elizabeth Harland, the old woman who hired her as her caregiver, and is eager to work hard and prove she’s right for the task.

Now, if she could just figure out why a local farmer keeps casting suspicious glares her way...

Sure, Grayson McCade has his hands full with his farm. That doesn’t change the fact that he considers the residents of Harland Creek family, and he takes time to look out for them all. The second he learns a newcomer has been hired to care for Elizabeth, he worries the kind-hearted old woman is being scammed.

Acting on what he believes to be the best of intentions, he sets out to uncover the truth about Heather’s past. Will the secrets revealed tarnish Heather’s new start before it even begins? Or will Grayson help make Harland Creek the home her heart longs for?

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Another author new to us. Beautiful cover. I have high hopes for the story too.

Where the Last Rose Blooms (Heirloom Secrets)

“Tender and true, this novel draws you in from the first page.”–SUSAN MEISSNER, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things

Alice runs a New Orleans flower shop alongside her aunt, but thoughts of her mother, who went missing during Hurricane Katrina, are never far from her mind. After getting off on the wrong foot with a handsome yet irritating man who comes to her shop, Alice soon realizes their worlds overlap–and the answers they both seek can be found in the same place.

In 1861 Charleston, Clara is known to be a rule follower–but the war has changed her. Unbeknownst to her father, who is heavily involved with the Confederacy, she is an abolitionist and is prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause. With assistance from a dashing Union spy, she attempts to help an enslaved woman reunite with her daughter. But things go very wrong when Clara agrees to aid the Northern cause by ferrying secret information about her father’s associates.

Faced with the unknown, both women will have to dig deep to let their courage bloom.

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A good day for new an interesting stories.

I’m enjoying the fascinating characters in my current read. It’s historical fiction and I think the main characters will turn out to be spies for the good guys. Haven’t gone far enough yet to discover how that all works though. It’s still a bargain if you hurry.

Until Leaves Fall in Paris

As the Nazis march toward Paris in 1940, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. Lucie struggles to run Green Leaf Books due to oppressive German laws and harsh conditions, but she finds a way to aid the resistance by passing secret messages between the pages of her books.

Widower Paul Aubrey wants nothing more than to return to the States with his little girl, but the US Army convinces him to keep his factory running and obtain military information from his German customers. As the war rages on, Paul offers his own resistance by sabotaging his product and hiding British airmen in his factory. After they meet in the bookstore, Paul and Lucie are drawn to each other, but she rejects him when she discovers he sells to the Germans. And for Paul to win her trust would mean betraying his mission.

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It has been an excellent book day. I’d better get reading if I expect to keep up. Maybe have supper along with it. My favorite way to eat.

Happy Reading!