I didn’t realise until I counted them up that I’ve written seven Christmas stories over the years. Here they are.
Merry Christmas 2022 and I hope you have a marvellous New Year!
What the False Heart Doth Know
A Christmas-New Year house party in Norfolk and a performance of the Shakespeare tragedy Macbeth is the backdrop for my story What the False Heart Doth Know in the anthology A Duke in Winter.
When Dragonblade Publishing offered their authors the opportunity to put their own spin on Shakespeare, I was keen to jump in. What the False Heart Doth Know is a line from Macbeth, and I decided to ‘go meta’ with it. Rather than restage Macbeth as a Regency Romance (hardly!), I decided to have a production of ‘the Scottish play’ as the background to a drama playing out between my hero and heroine.
Lady Sapphira Galbraith is hiding her heartbreak after Earl Anthony Redthorpe has broken a private promise to be hers. But when he turns up unexpectedly with his hew fiancee and her family, she learns his father has died and he is now Duke. What’s more, his father’s deceit forced him into betrothal to Lady Elizabeth. Is there hope for Sapphira and Anthony or are love’s labours lost?
Learn more about A Duke in Winter and What the False Heart Doth Know: Click-tap here.
Three Ships
This sweet Christmas story has been around a while and appeared as a giveaway with The Thief of Hearts. Being set at Christmas, it was a perfect fit for the 2022 Belles & Beaux Christmas anthology in which you can also enjoy seven other tales from the authors who make up The Bluestocking Belles.
Three Ships sees a violent storm bring lovelorn lighthouse dweller Laura Winter a clutch of pirates bent on mischief, but also a handsome lieutenant.
Find the Belles & Beaux anthology on Amazon: Click-Tap here.
The Thief of Hearts
This light-hearted romance is set in London in the lead-up to Christmas, and it’s a tale I’m rather fond of.
Caro Addison would love to be a detective but that’s not going to happen in Victorian London. Instead, while her Scotland Yard detective inspector uncle methodically hunts a notorious jewel thief, she investigates her own suspect – the handsome Tobias Black. He’s a magician who she’s convinced has means, motive, and opportunity.
It’s a tale for readers who like their romances sweet. I think The Thief of Hearts is seriously good fun!
Learn more about The Thief of Hearts: Click-Tap here.
Tidings of Comfort
Heroic Kit Hardacre from my Hearts of the Corsairs series is perhaps my favorite of all the characters I’ve created!
But he’s feeling sorry for himself this Christmas. While he contemplates his feelings about being abandoned by his birth parents, he discovers what family really means when he is asked to help find a missing little boy.
But who really finds who?
Kit discovers that not all who are lost have gone astray, and it is he who experiences tidings of comfort and joy.
Learn more about Tidings of Comfort: Click-Tap here.
Father’s Day
Privateer Captain Kit Hardacre is persuaded by his wife to learn more about his family. At the same time, Naval veteran and retired spy Adam Hardacre learns he has an adult son he never knew existed.
Thrown together one Christmas, by circumstances beyond their control, father and son must find mutual ground on which to come to terms with the past. Life is too short to hold on to regret, and a greater regret awaits if the two men cannot work together to save a life. Love comes in many forms… and none more strongly than the love from father to son.
This novella is linked to characters from both my Hearts of the Corsairs and The King’s Rogues series. Chronologically, it follows Tidings of Comfort.
Find Father’s Day on Amazon: Click-tap here.
Warming Winter’s Heart
Julian Winter has had his heart broken a time or two. And he’s tired of his well-meaning family trying to set him up with yet another vapid debutante.
His attitude to attending a winter house party at the home of Lord Daniel and Lady Abigail Ridgeway is frosty indeed until he learns that a fellow guest will be Caroline Lavene, a widow with a young son who he has encountered serving the homeless at St Luke’s Mission in the City.
As Christmas draws near, Julian finds there is warmth in Winter’s heart after all.
Julian Winter appears in Spy Another Day from my series The King’s Rogues.
Find out more about Warming Winter’s Heart: Tap-click here.
A Sweet Tale of Blessing
Scotland, 1818: Roddy McClane is returning home to the Scottish Highlands for Christmas. Feeling nostalgic for his past and inspired by his friend, Seth Musgrave, the new Duke of Auchen, Roddy heads north.
Unexpectedly, he finds himself protector of a young woman and a baby boy fleeing the aftermath of the Clearances which have destroyed their home. Soon Roddy feels more than protective – he’s falling in love with the brave young woman who finds it so hard to trust.Can she trust him enough to keep safe her infant nephew as well as her heart?
The character of Roddy McClane appears in Deceiving the Duke, the first of my Gems of London novels.
Find out more about the story and also listen to a reading from it on this page: Tap-click here.
