Grab a steamy cup of hot chocolate and enjoy this short, sweet holiday romance.

Another delight from Jenny Schwartz!!

I've been making out like a bandit. I feel like a kid under a Christmas tree.  like Christmas came early.  Like my stocking's full of chocolate.

I'm speaking of four opportunities to download free e-stories from authors who wished to exhibit fan-appreciation here at the end of the year.

The authors gave of their best.  Every one of these stories is a gem.

this is to say, Thank You.

(Caveat -- the offers for Guarding Christmas and The Naughty List were for a limited time only, and have expired.  Sorry!)

Hands on hips, head tilted back, Yvie frowned at the kitten atop the Christmas tree. The little ball of ginger and white fluff had knocked the angel askew and clung in its place, mewing defiance and fear.

 It turns out that rescuing kittens stranded in a tree at the mall gives "good shopping karma." And maybe good karma in other areas as well.

there is a surprising amount of depth in this very short Christmas story.  I especially like Yvie, who had written "her Master’s thesis on domestic courage, on women during the Great Depression and the Second World War and how their belongings revealed their survival strategies. . . how women from the past had written their stories not with words, but in how they furnished their houses, sewed their clothes, and laid out their gardens."

She is looking forward to starting her new job, one that combines her education, her skill in photography and her love of travel and adventure.  And then she runs into Gray.