Hunk for the Holidays (35 page)

I hope you enjoy JOSH!

RyanLangan.com

From the desk of Anna Campbell

Dear Reader,

Wow! I’m so excited that my first historical romance with Grand Central Publishing has hit the shelves (and the e-waves!). I hope you enjoy reading SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE’S BED as much as I enjoyed writing it. Not only is this my first book for GCP, it’s also the first book in my very first series, the Sons of Sin. Perhaps I should smash a bottle of champagne over my copy of SEVEN NIGHTS to launch it in appropriate style.

Hmm, having second thoughts here. Much better, I’ve decided, to read the book and drink the champagne!

Do you like fairytale romance? I love stories based on Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or some other mythical
hero or heroine. SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE’S BED is a dyed-in-the-wool Beauty and the Beast re-telling. To me, this is the ultimate romantic fairytale. The hero starts out as a monster, but when he falls in love, the fragments of goodness in his tortured soul multiply until he becomes a gallant prince (or, in this case, a viscount, but who’s counting?). Beauty and the Beast is at heart about the transformative power of true love—what more powerful theme for a romance writer to explore?

Jonas Merrick, the Beast in SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE’S BED, is a scarred recluse who has learned through hard and painful experience to mistrust a hostile world. When the book opens, he’s a rogue indeed. But meeting our heroine conspires to turn him into a genuine, if at first reluctant, hero worthy of his blissfully happy ending.

Another thing I love about Beauty and the Beast is that the heroine is more proactive than some other mythological girls. For a start, she stays awake throughout! Like Beauty, Sidonie Forsythe places herself in the Beast’s power to save someone she loves, her reckless older sister, Roberta. Sidonie’s dread when she meets brooding, enigmatic Jonas Merrick swiftly turns to fascination—but even as they fall in love, Sidonie’s secret threatens to destroy Jonas and any chance of happiness for this Regency Beauty and the Beast.

I adore high-stakes stories where I wonder if the lovers can ever overcome what seem to be insurmountable barriers between them. In SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE’S BED, Jonas and Sidonie have to triumph over the bitter legacy of the past and conquer present dangers to achieve their happily-ever-after. Definitely major learning curves for our hero and heroine!

This story is a journey from darkness to light, and it allowed me to play with so many classic romance themes.
Redemption. A touch of the gothic. The steadfast, courageous heroine. The dark, tormented hero. The clash of two powerful personalities as they resist overwhelming passion. Secrets and revelations. Self-sacrifice and risk. Revenge and justice. You know, all the big stuff!

If you’d like to find out more about SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE’S BED and the Sons of Sin series, please visit my website:
www.annacampbell.info
. And in the meantime, happy reading!

Best wishes,

From the desk of Katie Lane

Dear Reader,

One of my favorite things to do during the holidays is to read
The Night Before Christmas.
So I thought it would be fun to tell you about my new romance, HUNK FOR THE HOLIDAYS, by making up my own version of the classic.

’Twas four days before Christmas, and our heroine, Cassie,

Is ready for her office party, looking red hot and sassy.

When what to her wondering eyes should she see

But the escort she hired standing next to her tree?

His eyes how they twinkle, his dimples so cute,

He has a smile that melts, a great body to boot.

There’s only one problem: James is as controlling as Cass,

But she forgives him this flaw, when she gets a good look at his ass.

He goes straight to work at seducing his date,

And by the end of the evening, Cass is ready to mate.

Not to ruin the story, all I will say,

Is that James will be smiling when Cass gets her way.

Mixed in with their romance will be plenty of reason

For you to enjoy the fun of the season.

Caroling, shopping, and holiday baking,

A humorous great-aunt and her attempts at match-making.

A perfect book to cozy up with all the way through December,

HUNK FOR THE HOLIDAYS will be out in September.

For now I will end by wishing you peace, love, and laughter.

And, of course, the best gift of all… a happily-ever-after!

From the desk of Hope Ramsay

Dear Reader,

I love Christmas, but I have to say that trying to write a holiday-themed book in the middle of a long, hot summer is not exactly easy. It was hard to stay in the holiday mood when my nonwriting time was spent weeding my perennials border, watching baseball, and working on my short golf game.

So how does an author get herself into the holiday mood in the middle of July?

She hauls out her iPod and plays Christmas music from sun up to sun down.

My husband was ready to strangle me, but all that Christmas music did the trick. And in the end, it was just one song that helped me find my holiday spirit.

The song is “The Longest Night,” written by singer-songwriter Peter Mayer, a song that isn’t quite a Christmas song. It’s about the winter solstice. The lyrics are all about hope, even in the darkest hour. In the punchline, the song-writer gives a tiny nod to the meaning of Christmas when he says, “Maybe light itself is born in the longest night.”

When I finished LAST CHANCE CHRISTMAS, I realized that this theme of light and dark runs through it like a river. My heroine is a war photographer, who literally sees the world as a battle between light and dark. When she arrives in Last Chance, she’s troubled and alone, and the darkness is about to overwhelm her.

But of course, that doesn’t last long after she meets Stone Rhodes, the chief of police and a man who is about as Grinch-like as they come. But as the saying goes, sometimes the only way to get yourself out of a funk is to help someone else. And when Stone does that, he manages to spark a very hot and bright light in the dead of winter.

I hope you love reading Stone and Lark’s story as much as I did writing it.

Ya’ll have a blessed holiday, now, you hear?

ALSO BY KATIE LANE

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Praise for The Deep in The Heart of Texas Series

CATCH ME A COWBOY

“4½ stars! A heartwarming return to Bramble, Texas, with many familiar faces. This is an emotional story that will bring the reader to laughter as well as tears and spark a desire to see more of the characters, both new and old, who live here.”