Then they realized that the fire burning between them was more than mere chemistry. It was the harbinger of a love that would warm them through the holidays . . . and beyond.

    She threw herself into raising her boys and showered them with love. Her sense of betrayal ran deep. After all, Hector had told her they were true mates, fated to be together forever. Now, another man is telling her the same thing. Can she believe in fate again? Can she risk opening her heart once more? She’s here. Catherine. His Catherine, the woman who Julius recognized as his mate on the exact same day she married another man. Lucky Bear Ruth is new in town. After spending years raising her siblings, she is now fulfilling her own ambitions. Training to be a teacher was the best thing she ever did, right alongside moving to Bear Creek. Sure, she’d like a man to share her life with, but if that doesn’t pan out, she is content to be alone. Michael lives a simple life. He might be a lottery winner, which earned him the name, lucky bear, but he knows money doesn’t buy you happiness. It does, however, buy you a large parcel of forest to call home. If only he had a mate to share it with, he’d be the happiest bear alive. Or cubs. And two cubs just walked into his life. Fostered by his best friend, Dean, Jason and Jenny are in need of a permanent home. Could he take them in and give them the life, and love, they deserve? Fated Bear Frankie’s heart isn’t her own. Literally. So how is she supposed to know if the man she’s met is her fated mate, or that of her borrowed heart? Can she trust in fate? Adam always though his fated true mate was dead. He’d built a life on the knowledge that he would be alone forever. Frankie turns all his plans upside down. Yet both of them have inner ghosts. Ghosts from the past that might destroy their future together. Song Bear Elise has known loss. Now she’s ready to love. Moving to Bear Creek was a big decision for bear shifter, Elise. She left behind a life, a career, and a mountain of memories. However, the thought of watching Frankie’s children grow up, and the chance to open a new organ transplant coordination department at the hospital in Bear Bluff, persuaded Elise it was the right decision. Then, on a morning run in the mountains, she hears a song. Not just any song. And not just any singer. Elise lost her heart to Hank Rivera when she was fourteen. He was hers. And she was his. It didn’t matter that every other girl on the planet thought the exact same thing. Then he disappeared. Until now. Could it be that the Hank Rivera truly is hers? Blind Date Bear Tiana is resigned to her life as a single woman after her husband left her years ago. Who has time for a relationship when you have a child to raise and elderly parents to care for? Not to mention her ex-husband who lives in a trailer at the end of the garden. Then she's set up on a blind date by her best friends and her world changes forever. Because her date is a bear shifter and she's his mate. His mate for life and he doesn't intend to ever let her go. When Mason agrees to go on a blind date, he never expects to meet his true mate. But here she is in front of him. Now all he has to do is convince Tiana she has room in her life, and her heart, for a bear shifter in love. Builder Bear After a disastrous first marriage to an abusive husband, Haley is just about getting by. She has built a new life for herself and her two wonderful daughters with the help of her amazingly supportive friends, Tiana and Sorcha.

    Unfortunately, her latest plan to manifest success is to borrow a priceless necklace to wear to her annual Christmas party in her mobile home. Toni’s worried somebody may try to steal the valuable jewels — but the truth is much deadlier. The Diamond family’s holiday cheer may turn into holiday fear!

    Now he’s twenty six and in love with Bree and has been for the past seven years. She’s coming home for the holidays and has him so tied in knots he can’t think straight.Bree avoided going home for the holidays last year because she didn’t think she’d be able to handle being around Gabe, the man she’s in love with, who she thinks she can never be with. Or can she?To begin with both Gabe and Bree sneak around together and eventually Bree’s mother finds out and accepts them as a couple, but announcing it to her father causes heartache with the bombshell he drops.Join Gabe and Bree in a ‘hot’ Christmas story where love conquers all…. And were Bree discovers Gabe knows just how to use a red ribbon….Warning – Sexual explicit content. This story is a complete rewrite and reedited version of Home for the Holidays.

    Growing up in the system, she's learned how to take care of herself. So when she's approached by a stranger who claims she's the long-lost granddaughter of a millionaire, she's wary. Especially when she meets her "grandfather's" new business partner, sexy Troy Langtree, and falls in lust at first sight....With his latest fling having ended in disaster, bad-boy businessman Troy Langtree is starting over -- in a new city, in a new job. He's hoping he'll be able to figure out what he wants from life. Only, once he meets bad girl Venus Messina, all he wants is to have his wicked way with her -- again and again! And if he's lucky, Venus will be as bad as she looks....

     Charismatic entrepreneur Evan Tredioux is on a secret mission to infiltrate the sanctuary of a dangerous enemy of the state. During the covert operation, he exposes a coworker, and gives in to the desire he’s resisted for months. Caught up in a game of cat and mouse, he questions her claim that she’s innocent but vows to protect her. After Emerson Industry’s chief security officer Raine Presley’s cover is blown, she submits to a night of passion in the arms of a man she’s always wanted. Within his embrace, she surrenders to her dark fantasies, spiraling into an erotic world she has long yearned to explore. Time has run out. Their lives are on the line. Passion ignites and bullets fly as Evan’s forced to trust the dangerous beauty, but will he be able to protect the woman who’s captivated his attention?

    When she inherits half of a crumbling guest ranch in Crimson, Colorado, Sara figures she'll sell her portion to get back on her own two feet and be back in the black in no time at all. No harm, no foul…right? The one thing she didn't count on was her partner-in-property, hunky former bull rider and single dad Josh Travers. Sara is surprised at how quickly she bonds with the charming cowboy and his daughter. But she insists that she's definitely not looking for a forever family. Can the rancher and the starlet let down their guards to find their own Hollywood happy ending?

    Andrew Fforde offered her a job as his temporary receptionist. She hadn't expected to fall in love with him, but he was just so handsome and charming!Caroline Anderson's A Special Kind of Woman : When single mother Cait Cooper sees her daughter off to medical school, she feels now's the time to do all the things she's yearned to do. Enter Dr. Owen Douglas, who sets about giving Cait more fun than she's ever had, until their affair puts her right back where she started and Cait doesn't know which way to turn.

    Randi had no sooner married, when she met the young, handsome love of her life.Love With Honor is a zesty romance of poverty and wealth, youth and age, in which Randi's dilemma is resolved with heartbreak, excitement, courage and lasting love.

    Her soap and candle shop flourishes, and her friendship with the Papadopoulos family gives her the love and support she never got from her own family.The only thing missing is a romance--or in the grand hopes of the Papadopoulos family, a proper marriage. Preferably with Nick, their favorite son, currently serving in the Air Force. Paula, however, has doubts. After all, he's been gone a long time and loves flying. Their lives have grown apart. Would he still feel anything for her?When Nick comes home on leave, sparks fly, and not just with Paula. Nick's father wants him home, helping with the family sponge-diving business. His mother wants him back in the family, back in church. Nick just wants Paula . . . and the Air Force.So who's going to give in first? And what will it mean for their love and future?

    Was it her fault the wealthy weatherman was stuck at his remote mountain top station in three feet of snow without the boots he'd ordered? Still, the customer was always right...So off she went in the snow mobile to deliver those damned boots. Max was shocked to see the lovely but half-frozen Miranda arrive at his outpost with the merchandise. It wasn't every day that a beautiful delivery woman drops by the observatory. He predicted fog which meant she had to stay overnight, but he never predicted that lightning would strike him when he saw her. Now if only he could keep her there long enough to prove they were made-to-order...

    But when they land dream opportunities on opposite ends of the country following graduation, they are forced to make a heart-wrenching pact. In the hope of one day restarting their love story, they set a date to reunite in five years at their favorite restaurant.Restaurant owner Gianna Hayden is thirty-seven, single, and one bad date away from giving up on finding the right guy when she meets Peter Clark on a dating website. Attractive, kind, and driven, he is exactly what she thought she was looking for. But as the day of Charli and Jack's reservation approaches, Gianna finds herself reflecting on the kind of passionate love her former customers once had and begins to question her bond with Peter.These two riveting stories converge on the night of the fateful reunion. Gianna, Charli, and Jack are all forced to make difficult choices as they struggle to follow their hearts, and ultimately each must decide where their true feelings lie before time runs out.Waiting at Hayden's is the first book to be published in the new reading experience format shopfiction™, which Costello coined and branded. The digital version of this book contains links to watch key scenes unfold and to shop the characters' clothes. The print versions contain web addresses to do the same.

     Abandoned as a child on Christmas Eve, he has no use for the holiday season. When his best friend’s widow arrives in Glacier Creek, Montana, determined to give her small daughter the fairy-tale Christmas she’s dreaming of, Cole is prepared to dislike her. He isn’t prepared for Joy and her daughter to insinuate their way into his life—and his heart. But when tragedy strikes, he needs a Christmas miracle to fulfill the one wish he never knew he wanted. Joy Holliday believes in miracles. She sees hummingbirds everywhere, and believes they are tiny messengers from Heaven. Despite losing her husband four years ago, she is determined not to dwell on the past, but to look to the future. Her entire world revolves around taking care of her daughter, Piper, and ensuring she has a magical Christmas. In Glacier Creek she finds Cole, a man still smarting from the wounds of his past, determined to keep happiness at arms’ length. Can she save Christmas and show him the promise of a future with her?

    Get both curvy girl holiday romances for the price of one! A Christmas Dream Hayden: For the last decade, I’ve had the same Christmas dream every holiday season. It’s lovely, happy, sensual, and it’s total bullsh*t because there is no man like my dream man out there for me. Luckily, the sexy dream only happens once a year, because if it happened more than that, it would be depressing, a constant reminder of what I have in reality. In real life, I was just dumped by the latest loser in my life, a man who was just using me for my money, and a roof over his head. Good riddance, right? But things aren’t really all that simple. Problem is, I don’t feel like I’m worthy of anything better because I’m a big girl, and I like my food, if you know what I mean. So I made a bargain with myself to stay away from men and dating completely for at least a year to give myself a break, and to try to find my self-esteem after dating a string of men who just didn’t want…me. I thought that promise I made to myself would be easy to keep, and it was…until I met Jackson Gillette in Galveston while I was hiding out in my beach house licking my wounds from so many bad relationships. Jackson is a gorgeous, drool-worthy kind of guy. In other words, he was trouble. Men like him did not date women like me. But when I realized that there’s so much more to Jackson than the eye can see, do I dare take a chance on realizing my Christmas dream? After all, he might just be exactly what I want from Santa this year. Author Note: If you’re looking for a traditional, sweet Christmas romance, you might want to move on. This is a sexy, panty melting, fantastical Christmas romance that’s heavily rolled in sugar sweet enough to satisfy your craving for Christmas cookies, with a big dose of Christmas magic. If that sounds like great holiday reading to you, then dig in and enjoy!! A Valentine Dream Amy: February 14th is just another day to me. I don't really believe in hearts, flowers, romance, or happily-ever-afters. And I certainly don't think there's a dream man for a curvy woman like me, even if my little sister had found hers over the holidays. I'm more realistic. Or at least...I was...until I met Levi Gillette during my sister Hayden's wedding rehearsal dinner The man seems to have an annoying ability to make me lose my cool and calm facade. Yeah, he's definitely hot, but my sister's brother-in-law-to-be was also arrogant, infuriating, presumptuous, bossy, and most likely one big player because the man could be charming when he wanted to be. No thanks! Been there, done that, and I'd had more than enough of men like Levi Gillette. But when I start having amazingly erotic, intimate dreams about him, it's almost impossible to ignore him in the flesh. In my dreams, it was like I'd known Levi forever. But in person, I barely knew him, and he challenges everything I'd ever assumed about myself. We don't even like each other, yet he feels so...familiar. Finally, when the lines between dreams and reality start to blur, I have to wonder whether I can trust a guy like Levi with my heart. I knew he was hiding something. There were things I didn't know. I could feel it.

    The last thing she expected was to find her hunky boss holidaying in the beach shack next door.He looked mighty different to the uptight executive she was used to. He'd shed the suit and turned into a surf god. Dominic is horrified that Jilly is living in the old shack. Rumour has it that it's haunted. He wants her to move but she digs in. Can she ignore his charms...and who is the secret visitor who won't leave her in peace?