Christmas Pets and Kisses by Helen Scott Taylor, Mona Risk, Melinda Curtis, Alicia Street, Nikki Lynn Barrett, Rachelle Ayala, Nancy Radke, J.L. Campbell, Mary Leo, Jade Kerrion, Chantel Rhondeau, P.C. Zick, Michele Shriver, Aubrey Wynne, Sharon Coady, Annamaria Bazzi
SIXTEEN ALL-NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED SWEET (PG-rated) CHRISTMAS ROMANCES
Ring in the Christmas cheer with sixteen all-new sweet and heart-warming romances from New York Times, USA Today bestselling, and award-winning authors. Don’t miss out on this romantic collection of Christmas tails…uh, tales as adorable pets with fins, paws, feathers, and hooves bring holiday magic with the gift of true love.
Get into the Christmas spirit with CHRISTMAS PETS & KISSES. Limited time offer, so grab your set today! ONLY 99c!
Description
Find more from this author on:
About the author:
Although born in the United States, author Annamaria Bazzi spent a great deal of her childhood in Sicily, Italy, in a town called Sciacca. Italian was the language spoken at home. Therefore, she had no problems when she found herself growing up in a strange country. Annamaria lives in Richmond Virginia with her small family where she now dedicates a good part of her day writing.
What inspired you to write your book?
We are a group of romance writers drawn together by a love of writing and reading romances, a love of pets and the holidays. We decided to band together to present this group of sweet novellas for the holiday season.
Here is a short sample from the book:
Excerpt from Minty’s Kiss by P.C. Zick
Prologue
The bundle of black fur became Molly’s trusted companion the year she turned ten. It was her consolation prize for being the child of two people who hated one another so much they ended their marriage right before Christmas. Molly’s father brought the kitty over on Christmas Eve, and left it in a box with holes in the top under the Christmas tree. When Molly and her mother returned from midnight Mass, she heard squeaks coming from a box laden with a large red ribbon, sitting beneath the tree.
“A kitty!” she screamed when she tore open the top. She pulled the furry creature out of the box. The squeaking stopped only to be replaced by a loud purr.
“That purr is bigger than it is,” her mother said as she knelt down on the carpet next to Molly. “Your father finally got one thing right this Christmas.”
Molly ignored her mother as she buried her nose in his fur. “We need food, Mommy. Everything’s closed.”
“Go look in the kitchen.”
She carried her present with her and found cans of food and a box filled with litter on the floor by the sink.
“Just point it to the box, and everything should be fine.”
“Is it a girl or a boy?” Molly asked as she carried the fur ball to the litter box.
“It’s going to be hard to tell with all that fur. Knowing your father, he got you a male cat.”
“I think I’ll name him Harold. I think he’s a boy.”
“Harold? Why?”
“It fits. I like it.”
“It’s not very cat-like, but I suppose you’ll do what you want no matter what I say. Just like your father.”
Harold helped Molly ignore her mother and her bitterness over the divorce. He became her constant companion and confidant during the dark days of the winter, holed up in the mountain cabin in North Carolina. Her father’s family owned it, but her mother decided she would start her new life as a single mom in the Smoky Mountains, even though she never liked the cabin. Marilyn Irving enjoyed going to the theater and shopping at the mall. When the family did come to the cabin for vacations, Marilyn complained about the backwardness of Murphy, the closest town, and the rural area surrounding them. Her decision to move to the cabin came as an effort at revenge because Molly’s father enjoyed escaping to the mountains, and he loved the cabin. Since he initiated the divorce, he wasn’t in a position to deny his daughter and ex-wife much of anything.
“Molly, Nick is here.” The announcement came on Christmas afternoon as Molly sat on the kitchen floor playing with Harold. Nick was one of the only reasons she hadn’t protested too much when her mother made the surprising announcement about moving to Murphy.
“I see Santa was very good to you.” He knelt down next to her and gave Harold a rub on the head.
“Meet Harold. Harold, this is my friend Nick.”
Nick, two years older than Molly, reached for the kitty and rolled him over on his back in his arms. “People don’t think cats like their undersides rubbed like dogs do, but if you scratch right here on the chest between the front paws, most of them love it.” He scratched Harold in that spot and instantly his eyes closed and his purring machine started working.
“He loves it.” She looked at Nick with his blonde hair falling down into his eyes. He still wore his down jacket, but had pulled off his knit cap.
“How’s it going, Molly?” Nick looked at her with his bright blue eyes, and she lost herself in his gaze.
“It’s better now that you and Harold are here,” she said.
“My mom said you’ve moved here for good.”
“That’s what she says.” Molly nodded her head toward the living room where her mother sat reading a novel. “I hate her. She’s so mean.”
“It’s tough, isn’t it?” Nick reached for her brown hair and rubbed her head. “You just come find me anytime you need a friend, you hear?”
Molly nodded, and right there, on the kitchen floor, she vowed that one day she would marry Nick.
Chapter One
“Mommy, Harold isn’t here.”
Molly’s daughter Gracie jumped onto her bed, forcing her eyes open. It felt as if she’d only been sleeping for a few minutes. Molly sat up, rubbing her eyes.
“He’s probably hiding in a closet or under a bed.”
“No, he’s out in the woods somewhere. He ran outside when I opened the door to go out on the porch.”
Molly wondered how Harold managed to run anywhere these days, but he’d always been a bolter when a door opened. He loved being outside, particularly when he came to the mountains where he’d been born.
“He won’t go far. He’s too slow these days.”
“He wasn’t slow when he pushed past me and jumped off the porch.”
Molly got out of bed and pulled on her sweats that she’d peeled off the night before, dead tired after an eight-hour drive to the cabin from Jacksonville, Florida. Pulling a trailer behind her truck proved to be more challenging than she imagined. But they’d made it back to the place where Molly first fell in love and always felt safe. She inherited the cabin when her father died in May. When Molly’s husband announced a few months later that sailing the world with his best friend was more important than being a father to their daughter and a husband to her, the cabin provided Molly a lifeline. So she’d done what her own mother had done eighteen years earlier and moved her daughter and herself back to the cabin in North Carolina after her divorce. She vowed not to follow her mother’s example and kept her bitterness at Derek’s abandonment from Gracie. Besides, she loved Murphy, the mountains, and the small cabin that her father had neglected during his years of battling cancer. And more importantly, Molly made the decision to divorce Derek once she gazed into the huge gap in how each envisioned their relationship. Often on the drive from Jacksonville to Murphy, she wondered about Nick. She hadn’t seen him since she was a teenager, and he had girls his own age hanging all over him. He was probably married with two kids, so she put him out of her mind.
Molly walked out to the broad porch that ran the length of the cabin. She breathed in the mountain air and looked out at the fog masking the view of the Smokies. She’d always loved watching the “smoke” glide away in wisps of clouds, slowly revealing the tree-covered mountains.
“Harold, here kitty. Come on, Harold. Breakfast time.” She whistled her special call, which usually brought the old cat rambling in his walk of old age to find out what the fuss was.
“Hello, Molly.”
Molly turned sharply toward the driveway and watched as a tall man with blonde hair walked around the trailer she’d driven from Jacksonville. She knew instantly who it was, and immediately she felt safe. Nick Johnson. Her one-time best friend and childhood crush. The man she vowed to marry one day.
“Nick? Is it really you?” He took the four steps up to the porch in one giant leap and then he engulfed her in his arms.
“You’re all grown up, Molly, but I’d recognize you anywhere.”
“Same for you. It’s good to see you.”
“I heard about your dad. He was a good man.”
“Thank you. He was sick for a long time with cancer, so it was really a blessing when he passed.”
Nick nodded. “Did I hear you calling for Harold? You still have Harold?”
“Sure do. He’s an old man now, but he made the trip with us.”
“Us?”
Just then the front door opened, and Gracie came out onto the porch.
“Mommy, did he come back?”
Related products
-
Fate Interrupted by Kaitlyn Cross @KaitlynCross6
Dean Jacobs is one of Milwaukee’s hottest eligible bachelors and in no mood to settle down, until she comes along. Evy, however, is focused on opening a new dessert bar with her sister but Dean won’t take no for an answer. She finally gives in to the want in her gut and – much to her surprise – discovers he isn’t the player she thought he was. Just when things turn into a fairytale sent from above, Dean’s past comes back to haunt him. The only question is: will it make them stronger, or rip them apart?
The Wrong Man by Delaney Diamond
They have nothing in common. So why can’t they stay away from each other?
Construction foreman Tomas Molina has no desire to settle down. He enjoys the single life too much, with all the choices of women available to him. But when ad executive Talia Jackson becomes single again, they start an affair that has him questioning his beliefs about relationships. And the next thing he knows, he’s the one demanding exclusivity.
Talia Jackson has always done what’s right. Gone to the right schools, worn the right clothes, and married the right man. Seeking a boost when her marriage ends in divorce, she finds comfort in the arms of Tomas Molina, a man who makes her feel alive in a way she never has before. Then an unexpected result of their affair forces her to make a tough decision—stay in the world she’s known all her life, or make a future with the man she’s grown to love.
The Advent of Lena, a Tale of Beauty and the Beast by Neil M Campbell
Chloe Lambert is used to men looking at her twice but for all the wrong reasons – they cannot believe how ugly she is. She has no reason to think Park Delafield, of the perfect profile and cheek bones to die for, is any different when he insults her in a pub. But all is not as it seems, turns out he’s looking for salvation and has decided she’s the one. Only trouble is, Chloe’s not so sure.
When a stranger in a bar loudly comments on her appearance, Chloe Lambert can only assume that the remark which cut her to the bone was for him simply a casual aside. Park Delafield, however, at once struck down for his savagery by a friend of Chloe’s, is visited in his humiliation by the insight that only the love of the woman he has offended can redeem the despicable individual he has become. He sets out to win Chloe but she, bewildered by his attentions and repelled by his egotism, wants no part in his quest. Until his tireless persistence, combined with her own curiosity about his true personality and motives, soften her distrust of his sincerity. Warily she allows him into her life, thus seeding hurricanes of self-discovery, reckless commitment, and searing betrayal through which all involved journey toward disaster . . . or liberation and redemption.
Taking Chances by Ann Omasta
Spice-o-meter Rating: This fun, steamy romance is a solid 7.5, maybe an 8, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being mild (Your Grandma’s diary – let’s hope!) and 10 being Ooh La La, I’m blushing, but I can’t seem to stop turning the pages (The Fifty Shades of Grey Red Room of Pain). If YOU love reading about naughty, complicated love-triangles or enjoy fun, contemporary romance novels with surprising twists along the way, get ready to spend the day reading “Taking Chances.” This fast-paced, exciting story follows the passionate journey of Abigail Brown, a 28-year-old divorcee who has never had an orgasm, much to her chagrin. Despite being self-conscious about what she considers to be her body’s ‘failings’, she has built a terrific life for herself in the quaint, lakeside town of Harbor Shores, Michigan. Abby thinks that she has discovered her ‘happily ever after’ ending when she stumbles upon the perfect man, who shows her the intense sensual bliss that her body is capable of enjoying. Just when you think you have this book all figured out, some unexpected surprises come along and completely shake up Abby’s world. Get your copy of “Taking Chances” now because it’s a great day to relax and enjoy reading a terrific, new book that you won’t want to put down!
Love Me by Margaret Watson
When Helen Brody needed her office repaired, she never expected that the contractor would be Jamie Evans, the man with whom she shared an unforgettable night a year earlier. Jamie hasn’t forgotten Helen, either, and now that he’s found her, he’s determined not to let her get away again.
Helen can’t get involved with Jamie, because he wants something she can’t give him, but she can’t deny the explosive, out of control attraction between them. As they try to work through their feelings, they find that the hit and run driver who destroyed Helen’s office has more plans for her. Will they have only a handful of nights together, or will they have the chance to build something lasting?
Love Me is the first book in the Donovan Family series. Watch Me and Find Me are also available.
Thirty Something (Nothing’s how we dreamed it would be) by Filipa Fonseca Silva
Joana is a conservative, controlling woman who expected much more from marriage; Maria is trying to get back on her feet after being dumped just before her wedding; Filipe hides his broken heart in failed relationships. Is this as good as it gets when you’re thirty something? That’s what these three friends from college times will find out during a dysfunctional dinner party. Because life is not always how we dreamed it would be.
Wander and Roam by Anna Kyss
In the last year, Abby Bentley has failed out of college and lost her high school sweetheart. Unwilling to return home, Abby signs up to volunteer on an Australian farm, where she can hide away from her family and isolate to her heart’s desire. Best of all, no one will care about her past. Abby soon discovers she’ll be sharing most of her daylight hours–as well as a very small yurt–with the farm’s other volunteer: sexy, flirtatious Sage.
The more hours they spend together, the more conflicted Abby becomes. Torn between a growing attraction to Sage and faltering loyalty to her old boyfriend, Abby escapes to her refuge of writing letters she will never send. When Abby finally reveals her past, Sage’s secret about his future threatens their bond. With Abby running from her past and Sage trying to escape his future, can they build a relationship in the here and now?
Loving the Bodyguard (bundle of four contemporary romances) by Noelle Adams
A crazed stalker, a surprise baby, the paparazzi, a one-night stand with a client he’s loved for years…what’s a hot bodyguard to do?
New York Times bestselling author Noelle Adams teams with bestselling authors Jami Alden, Kristi Avalon, and Misha Crews to bring you Loving the Bodyguard, a bundle of four contemporary romances featuring sexy bodyguard heroes and the women who love them.
Buy it at a bargain price for a limited time only (regularly priced at $3.99).
One Night with her Bodyguard by Noelle Adams: In an isolated cabin, Michael is supposed to be protecting Claire from a stalker, but instead he gives into his heart for one hot night.
Private Passions by Jami Alden: After spending one night in his arms, A-list actress Jane realizes she’s fallen for her bodyguard, but then it all falls apart when their private passion becomes tabloid fodder.
Billionaire Bodyguard by Kristi Avalon: When a one-night stand leads to unexpected consequences, billionaire Logan must protect the woman he loves and their baby.
Her Secret Bodyguard by Misha Crews: When a Special Forces veteran is hired to protect a Malibu playgirl, sparks fly faster than bullets, but will they live long enough to realize they’re falling in love?
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.