Book picks similar to
Starlight Inn by Lucie Ulrich


christmas
romance
contemporary
christian-fiction

A Tale of Two Cities: A Christmas Novella


Alexandra Warren - 2018
    But who's to say that's the only one? Director, Dallas Bryant, isn’t looking for love this holiday season, but that all changes when Madison Walker and a mistletoe come in the picture. ;) A Tale of Two Cities Collection: Cute & Sweet Millennial Meets Over a Holiday, All With One Thing In Common; Cities. Note: This is a short novella with a happy-for-now ending. If you prefer your stories longer, I'd recommend checking out another Alexandra Warren project. :)

Kissmas Eve


M.E. Carter - 2016
    What he does love is sports, the thrill of a competition and the mysterious identity of the woman he’s been flirting with on the company messanger… Meg McClane loves everything about Christmas, from her festive Ugly Sweaters, down to her candy-cane striped toenails. But not everyone appreciates her holiday cheer; not her co-workers, not her bosses, and certainly not Adam Roberts—especially the night they get stranded in the elevators on their way to the company Christmas party…

A Holiday by Gaslight


Mimi Matthews - 2018
    But the darkly handsome Mr. Edward Sharpe is no run-of-the-mill London merchant. He’s grim and silent. A man of little emotion—or perhaps no emotion at all. After two months of courtship, she’s ready to put an end to things. A Last Chance for Love But severing ties with her taciturn suitor isn’t as straightforward as Sophie envisioned. Her parents are outraged. And then there’s Charles Darwin, Prince Albert, and that dratted gaslight. What’s a girl to do except invite Mr. Sharpe to Appersett House for Christmas and give him one last chance to win her? Only this time there’ll be no false formality. This time they’ll get to know each other for who they really are.

A Plain and Simple Christmas


Amy Clipston - 2010
    Now, eight months pregnant when her first child, she longs to return home for Christmas to reconcile with her family, especially her stern father, who is the religious leader for her former Amish church district.So Anne Mae writes a letter to Kathryn Beiler, her brother's wife, to enlist her help. Kathryn asks her husband, David, if she should arrange Anna Mae's visit. David cautions her that a visit would cause too much stress in the family and instead suggests they visit Anna Mae and her husband in the spring. However, Kathryn arranges the visit anyway, believing in her heart that it's God's will for the family to heal.When Anna Mae arrives in Lancaster for Christmas, the welcome she receives is nothing like what she had hoped for.A book filled with love, the pain of being separated from one's family, and the determination to follow God's will regardless of the outcome, A Plain and Simple Christmas is an inspiring page-turner that will keep you guessing what happens next ... right to the very last page.

Picturing Christmas


Jason F. Wright - 2013
    With a degree and a dream, she's heading to New York City to start a new job and a new life. She can't wait to experience Rockefeller Center and to take a thousand pictures of her first Christmas in the city.But before she's even on the ground, she loses the job and learns her parents are divorcing.Can Aubrey find her way in an unforgiving city? Can she find love, or at the very least, a real friend? Most importantly, with her first holiday in New York fast approaching, can she create the kind of Christmas she always pictured?

When Love Leads You Home


Jami Crumpton - 2019
    After missing the Olympic team because of injury, and being shut out by her ‘winning is everything’ father, she’s built a career as a top notch, award-winning coach. When a serious student injury propels her to the outside of the gymnastics world, she finds herself broke and alone – until a bequest from a mysterious and unknown aunt takes her on an unexpected journey. Who was Aunt Winnie, and what does the equally mysterious and unknown Mr. Boudreaux have to do with it? Army veteran, Cole Boudreaux, has returned home a hero to Cardinal Point, Texas, but a few things went wrong with his homecoming. His fiancée cut him loose, and he lost his position as a police officer because a wartime injury left him nearly deaf. Then, the woman who was like a mother to him dies suddenly. Cole knows God has a plan, and if he could settle Winnie’s estate and grow his budding security business, he just might figure out what it is. Winnie’s niece is not making it easy. She’s rolled into town with a ton of baggage and secrets she’s not willing to share. Why is Jacey so distant, and why is she so determined to not let him in?

My True Love Gave to Me...


Christine Lynxwiler - 2005
    Penny Lassiter has a comfortable holiday routine with her family and friends--until her husband gets laid off from work and seemingly undergoes a personality transplant. When he comes home with a travel atlas and the keys to a borrowed RV, he turns her cookie-cutter Christmas plans into perfect chaos. She has no choice but to buckle herself and the kids in for a crazy cross-country ride that defies all of her expectations and redefines her priorities in a way she has never imagined. SHORT EXCERPT: "I gritted my teeth and shifted the cardboard box against the spindly pull-down attic ladder. Whoever invented these contraptions obviously hadn’t considered that people would be going up and down the narrow steps with their arms full. Of course, I could be transferring my aggravation to some nameless inventor instead of placing the blame where it belonged—squarely on the shoulders of my beloved husband and his recent mysterious attitude. “The—” I pressed the side of my face against the cardboard, clutching my burden tightly, in spite of the dust particles crawling up my nose. “—very—” I lowered one foot, tapping air until I found the next step. It would be a disaster to fall with this box. “—idea!” I jumped off the last step and landed with a thud, gripping my priceless cargo. For sixteen years, Thanksgiving afternoon at the Lassiters had meant one thing—putting up the Christmas tree.I set the old box carefully on the hardwood floor in the den and stared at the words I’d written the year Phillip and I had married—Fragile: Christmas Ornaments. On the corner of the box, where I always denoted our storage containers as Summer or Winter or Open When Amanda Turns Ten, I had printed Thanksgiving Day. Even then, at the ripe old age of twenty, I never left anything to chance. Spell it out. No beating around the bush. No doubt about it, today was the day.So why had my husband, who loved Christmas as much as I did, announced cryptically at breakfast that instead of putting up the tree this afternoon he had something else planned? Granted, he’d been acting strange for at least a week, but his proclamation had thrown my whole day off kilter. And then, he’d driven off after lunch to take his parents home without another word about it."

Coming Home for Christmas


Jenny Hale - 2013
    With a budget bigger than her life savings and a team of staff, how hard can it be?As one-by-one she meets the Marleys, she’s about to find out…Allie’s new boss, Robert, might be gorgeous, but he’s also colder than the snow outside and refuses to come home for Christmas. Robert’s playboy brother, Kip, flirts with her relentlessly; and his sister, Sloane, arrives home with baggage—both the divorce-kind and the Louis Vuitton kind. Their ninety-two year old grandmother, Pippa, spends her day grumbling at everybody from her mobility scooter.With Robert intending to sell Ashford, it’s the Marley’s last chance to create some happy memories in their family home—and Allie is determined to make it happen… even if it takes a little Christmas magic! With the festive spirit in full swing, she might even discover a little happiness of her own…

If the Fates Allow: A Short Story


Rainbow Rowell - 2021
    Maybe a little too easily. She’s always liked people better from afar. But Reagan doesn’t want her grandpa to be alone for Christmas this year—he’s already spent too much time on his own in 2020. So she heads back to her hometown with a dish of holiday Jell-O salad, hoping they can have a little normalcy. Hoping it will be safe…She isn’t expecting to run into the boy next door. Mason is all grown up now. He’s considerate. He’s funny. He doesn’t mind how prickly Reagan is—he maybe even likes it. And it makes Reagan feel like her defenses are falling. She needs her defenses, doesn’t she? In a time when six feet is close enough, how long can they keep their distance?

Christmas Roses


Amanda Cabot - 2012
    She certainly doesn't have a husband on her Christmas wish list. But when a wandering carpenter finds lodging at her boarding house, she admits that she might remarry if she found the right man--the kind of man who would bring her roses for Christmas. It would take a miracle to get roses during a harsh Wyoming winter. But Christmas, after all, is the time for miracles . . .Amanda Cabot invites readers to cozy up with a romantic, heartwarming tale of the greatest gift of all--love.

A Gentle Love


Emily Woods - 2017
    He has a secret that could drive any woman away. Can they find a love to overcome it all? A Sweet Western Romance from #1 Best Selling Author Emily Wood Kate is a widow who watched her whole life go up in flames. With nowhere else to turn, she heads west to live with her aunt and start a new life for herself and her daughter. As she struggles to provide a new life for her daughter, she finds herself attracted to man who has vowed to never love again. Can she overcome her lack of faith and trust someone enough to find love again? A Gentle Love is a clean western romance from #1 Best Selling author Emily Woods. If you like clean, historical fiction about women who must overcome tragedy in order to love again, you will love this sweet romance! Buy A Gentle Love and get lost in another sweet western romance today. Always FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Colors of Christmas: Two Contemporary Stories Celebrate the Hope of Christmas


Olivia Newport - 2017
    Instead, she finds herself in charge of the town’s celebration. After a mysterious young man arrives, townspeople suspect he is the reason that one set of plans after another disintegrate until little is left of their traditions. Yet Angela warms to Gabe because she suspects they share a secret—his real reason for coming to town. Even when all they have to work with is a garish supply of blue Christmas decorations, Gabe helps Angela discover the hidden beauty of hope.  Christmas in Gold After eighty years, change is nothing new for Astrid. By the time she was twenty, she survived the destructive Nazi regime, caring for her family under brutal circumstances, moving to America, and losing her husband. At forty she was widowed again and left to build a new life with her children. Now, when she faces a move into an assisted living community and meets a young woman on the brink of despair, she resolves to stir up hope through tragedy one more time.

The Three Christmases of William Spencer


Derek Blount - 2010
    As William Spencer celebrates his birthday each year on December 25--first as a child in rural America in the 1930s, and then as a World War II veteran, husband, and father--he learns that, no matter what his circumstances, happiness is an attitude, not a condition. But as a solitary old man living in a one-bedroom apartment, William Spencer expects this Christmas birthday to be his last. His holiday is one of solitude and reflection, dominated by the echoes of the past and by a single, simple wish. When an unexpected turn of events reminds William of a lesson learned many years ago, he's faced with a choice. Can he find the strength to imagine a new future?

Always a Will and a Way


Barbara Gee - 2014
    Their comfortable routine is interrupted when her late husband’s parents contact her out of the blue, after nine years of total silence. Promising to explain everything, they request that Kelly bring James to visit them at their Texas ranch. It’s the last thing Kelly wants to do, yet she feels an unexplainable prompting to go. With the fervent hope that the visit will be good for James, she books the plane tickets and prepares herself for a very uncomfortable week. Heading into “enemy territory", the last thing Kelly expects is to meet a man who leaves her breathless, the first man to turn her head since she lost her husband. A relationship with Will Connor seems totally out of reach, but the handsome young cowboy refuses to let Kelly’s fears keep them from exploring what God might have in store for them. As they overcome obstacles and start to see a future together, one final snag causes Kelly to question their happy ending. Is Will actually better off without her? Is she strong enough to give him up?

The Oddest Little Mistletoe Shop


Beth Good - 2017
     Rose Mistletoe runs her family's flower shop on Christmas Parade, and loves every minute of her job. So when the Parade comes under acquisition by a redevelopment company, Rose forms a protest group against the bid. But business tycoon Nick Grimsby is determined to make her sell up. His company is planning to knock down the parade of traditional shops and build a block of exclusive apartments instead. And it seems the sexy billionaire will go to any lengths to get her shop. As Christmas approaches and Nick dangles the proverbial mistletoe, can Rose resist his powerful allure? Given how gorgeous he looks in a tuxedo, the answer is probably no. But she's not going to make it easy for him! Because Rose has secret plans of her own ... Warning! This romcom novella contains jokes, oodles of romance, festive wreaths, mistletoe, holly, and a sprinkling of paper hats. Another quirky romcom in the popular 'Oddest Little Shop' series from Beth Good. Titles can be read in any order.