Don’t Toss Your Christmas Cookies
Chestnut Creek Christmas Series, #1
Journalist and Christmas cynic Ivy Edwards shocks readers of her online magazine when she pens a viral hot-take bashing holiday rom-coms and the improbability of their cheesy love tropes. Millions of views and umpteen angry responses later, the readers’ mandate to Ivy is clear: prove it or shut up. The magazine’s editor-in-chief hatches a plan and books Ivy a week-long stay in festive Chestnut Creek, North Carolina. Tasked with planning three blind dates during her stay, Ivy doesn’t have a clue where to begin, but she knows a local who might be able to help her—and he’s in need of his own assistance.
Defamed ex-college football hopeful and local coffee shop owner Joe Henderson has been there, done that under media scrutiny. Rampant viral speculations about his personal trials were brutal. Now content to be living back in his hometown of Chestnut Creek, Joe has no immediate plans to step into any spotlights or fall for anyone, especially not the cynical city girl with a disdain for all things Christmas who’s suddenly a fixture in his shop. But he agrees to help her plan three amazing dates in return for teaching him how to create delicious macarons for his storefront.
Working together, Joe’s warm smiles begin melting Ivy’s icy exterior, and she finds herself slap dab in the middle of her own holiday rom-com in the making… if she can shake off her belief that it’s all just a sugary-sweet illusion.
A Snow Ball’s Chance
Chestnut Creek Christmas Series, #2
Their frosty rivalry heats up with one chance Snow Ball.
High school English teacher Ember Lockhardt is a stickler for the rules when it comes to protecting her students’ best interests and educational opportunities. Born and raised in Chicago, Ember landed in small Chestnut Creek, North Carolina, working with a state-led program to bring gifted educators to under-accommodated rural schools. As her tenure nears its end, she’s assured a sizable financial stipend, which she hopes to use to start an English and writing conservatory in the picturesque mountain town, despite her mother’s incessant pleas, trying to lure her back to the big city life.
Local wrestling coach and gym teacher Cole Hansen, born and bred in Chestnut Creek, is a beloved figure in the town and a favorite among the students at Chestnut Creek High School. He inherently understands the full spectrum of needs his students face and prides himself on advocating for them. Fiercely protective of the small town and his family’s legacy there, he mistrusts outsiders and their intentions, especially big-city transplants. He’s lost enough to those cosmopolitan allurements—the most hurtful being his own mother who abandoned him as a child to pursue an acting career.
When Ember bars the champion wrestler from competition because of failing grades, she and Cole have a heated exchange in the school’s hallway. The principal, hoping to heal the rift between them, charges Ember and Cole with planning the school’s holiday dance. Working together, Ember’s love of Christmas and Chestnut Creek softens Cole’s hardened exterior, but when opportunity comes knocking from the big city, he realizes that convincing Ember to stay might mean parting with the very life he loves.
This enemies-to-lovers romcom proves that ice can sometimes be nice…
Say Yule Love Me Again
Chestnut Creek Christmas Series, #3
In a season of second chances, their reunion feels as fragile as glass…
When Event Planner Carys Peterson’s best friends return to Chestnut Creek just before Christmas with big news and an even bigger request—they’re getting married and want her to plan the entire wedding in just one week—she can’t say no. But the festive chaos takes an unexpected turn when they reveal that the Best Man and her assistant for the week is none other than Christian Glaser, the man she once planned to spend forever with before a devastating breakup five years ago.
For Christian, being back in his hometown stirs bittersweet memories, none more powerful than the day Carys blindsided him and shattered their dreams on a mountaintop. Now a world-traveling, renowned glassblowing artist, he’s convinced he can survive a week working beside her, even if the town’s meddling—and Carys’s ever-endearing smile—keeps pulling him dangerously close to the love he thought he’d lost forever.
As lingering feelings and embarrassing mishaps conspire to bring them closer, Carys and Christian attempt to ignore the past and stick to the plan of giving their friends a dream wedding. But the arrangement feels as fragile as the glass ornaments Christian creates, and each moment spent together makes it harder to deny that their story might not be over.
Will they find the courage to face the pain of the past and recapture the possibility of a future together? Or will their second chance melt like the snowflakes in the December air?
Mistletoeing the Line
Chestnut Creek Christmas Series, #4
This Christmas will be one for the books…
Wren Bennett, grad student, future librarian, and Jane Austen enthusiast, is spending the holidays in Chestnut Creek with her best friend Annika after her parents ditch her for a European vacation. The James home has previously been her refuge… and Annika’s brother, Brooks, has always been the boy she never quite forgot.
Years ago, Brooks confided in Wren about his fear of leaving their mountain town for a national sportscasting career. Now he’s back too—older, broader-shouldered, and exhausted by the PR-crafted playboy persona he never wanted.
Enter Caroline, his ambitious ex, determined to use Brooks to boost her influencer dreams. To dodge her advances, Brooks begs Wren to be his pretend girlfriend. She agrees, partly because he promises to help save the local library’s fundraiser… and partly because her heart never really let go.
But when fake dating blurs into something unmistakably real, old sparks flare brighter than ever—until a public betrayal goes viral and shatters Wren’s trust just days before the Christmas Eve gala. Now Brooks must prove to the whole town—and to Wren—that he isn’t chasing fame. He’s chasing her.
Warm, heartfelt, and delightfully bookish, Mistletoeing the Line is perfect for fans of cozy small-town romance, best friend’s brother drama, fake dating, and Christmas magic with a Jane Austen literary twist.