STAR OF WONDER is Collection #1 in this glorious holiday gathering of tales from some of your favorite Dragonblade authors.Imagine, if you will, that it is Christmas Eve. The candles are guttered, one by one, and a hush falls over the parlor. The children have gone to bed, and a tall, gloriously decorated Christmas tree looms in the shadows of the hearth’s dying embers.The clock on the wall chimes midnight.Now, the holiday magic happens.Oh, come all ye faithful and feel the holiday spirit of Historical Romance inspired by classic holiday carols that will warm your heart and soothe your soul.This collection includes:All I Want for Christmas is You - Chasity BowlinThe Reindeer Romance - Caroline LeeAll I Want for Christmas - Meara PlattTwelve Days of Love - Alexa AstonAlways the Reverend - Emily E.K. MurdochOnce Upon a Midnight Kiss - Elisa BradenA Promise Kept...A Love Unspoken - C.H. AdmirandNothing at All for Christmas - Nicole LockeA Sweet Tale of Blessings - Elizabeth Ellen CarterBy the Rosemary Tree - Abigail BridgesThe Last Christmas - Veronica CroweTo Wish Upon a Midwinter Scot - E. Elizabeth WatsonIn the Bleak Midwinter - Anna MarklandMake sure to pick up your copy of STAR OF LIGHT, Collection #2, to complete your holiday reading.From Dragonblade to you, we wish you a very happy holiday season!

     The Fortune Hunter : A stunning beauty rejects the charming suitor who isn't wealthy enough to save her impoverished family. But she can't so easily dismiss the memory of their sweet shared kiss. Deirdre and Don Juan : The dashing Earl of Everdon is most eager to marry someone-anyone-who will bear him an heir. But when he meets a quiet, well-bred lady who fits the bill, he must resort to an amorous dance of deception to gain her acceptance to his proposal.

    Calling in a long overdue loan, Luke finds himself reluctantly accepting a bargain in lieu of payment from the shiftless farmer who barters his daughter to settle his debt.Philamena Booth is both mortified and relieved when her father sends her off with the banker as payment of his debt. Held captive on the farm by her father since the death of her mother more than a decade earlier, Philamena is grateful to leave. If only it had been someone other than the handsome and charismatic Luke Granger riding in to rescue her. Ready to uphold her end of the bargain as Luke’s cook and housekeeper, Philamena is prepared for the hard work ahead. What she isn’t prepared for is being forced to marry Luke as part of this crazy Christmas bargain.

    He determines to tell his daughter a Christmas story—one that conveys the true meaning of the holiday. And he knows just the story.The year is 1968 and Jesse's father is serving a tour in Vietnam. Jesse and his mother are struggling to make ends meet. He gives little thought to the approaching holidays. That changes however, when he is befriended by Ardella Calder, an elderly customer on his paper route. During a visit, the woman shows Jesse her Christmas Tin. Inside it are gifts from her most memorable Christmases. As she tells Jesse the heartwarming stories behind the gifts, he slowly comes around. But just when things are looking up, the Macleans receive a telegram with dire news about Jesse's father.It is during this time that Ardella tells Jesse a final story, a poignant, war time holiday story. A story to guide Jesse through his grief and show him that sometimes faith and hope can bring light to even the darkest of places.

    Christmas at Thompson Hall brings together the best of the Christmas stories of Anthony Trollope, one of the most successful, prolific, and respected English novelists of the nineteenth century. Characterized by insightful, psychologically rich, and sometimes wryly humorous depictions of the middle class and gentry of Victorian England—and inspired occasionally by missives in the “lost letter” box of the provincial post office that Trollope ran—these tales helped to enshrine the traditions of the decorated Christmas tree, the holiday turkey, and the giving of store-bought gifts. Today, they open a window onto a time when carolers filled the streets and each house’s door displayed a wreath of evergreen boughs, a time at once distant and yet startlingly familiar.This collection includes:Christmas at Thompson Hall --Christmas day at Kirkby Cottage --The mistletoe bough --The two generals --Not if I know it.

    Her former boss, Colter Wells, is back in Dry Creek--with a newly discovered daughter who needs some female guidance. But can one motherless little girl--and the two adults bonded to her and to each other--make up a perfect family?The Christmas Secret by Sara MitchellClara Penrose's bluestocking ways have branded her a spinster among Virginia's elite. Yet a reunion with Dr. Ethan Harcourt rekindles feelings Clara thought long lost. Her second chance finally here, Clara needs only to catch the good doctor under the mistletoe!

    Who would want such a woman? Obviously no one. For here she was, eighteen and now of age to set out on her own. But New Orleans was full of men with evil intent for one such as herself, and she saw no other choice but to take the only offer for survival she could find and become a mail order bride. What she didn't count on was becoming Sheriff Clayton Riley's Christmas present!

    She had to get work and luckily the dark and brooding Heywood Denshaw needed a housekeeper – but the Master soon begun to wish for more... Sunderland, 1899 Wealthy farmer Luke Hudson gets more than he bargained for when he plucks a destitute young woman from the workhouse. He may have rescued Connie Summers from a life of penury, but her spirit and warmth give him a second chance at love. Isle of Dogs, 1928 Doctor Harry Fleet and compassionate nurse Tilly Dainty can’t help but clash at the Tap House Surgery. But working together to help the sick turns out to be the healing balm both their hearts needed.

    Wrong, and with yet another lonely Christmas looming, she decides it's time to alter the equation - and seek out someone who seems totally wrong for her. Eureka! The heart is a genius... Bah, Handsome Behind on her bills, B&B owner Hope receives an unlikely guest - stranded solicitor Danny, who has been threatening to put her out of business. Funny how the holidays can bring people together no matter how much they resist... Ms. Humbug Born rebel or overgrown man child, Matt is the kind of man no woman can tame--until an unexpected encounter with his nemesis, Cami, at the office holiday party proves there is an exception to every rule.

    A soldier who never came home. A nutcracker that might hold one last Christmas wish... World War II has been over for three months, but Clara can't join in the Christmas festivities with her friends and family. The fiance she sent off to Europe three years ago never returned. But just as she's about to give up hope, her godfather might just have one last miracle up his sleeve. And it all begins with a nutcracker.

    She escapes to her Somerset estate for a quiet Christmastide holiday with her family, away from society’s prying eyes. But before her parents can join her, a storm crashes down on Somerset to destroy any hope of Pippa’s white Christmas dream. The roads have flooded and travel is impossible, leaving her stranded and alone. But a muddied, angry and devilishly handsome lord appears at her door demanding shelter. Lucas Hartfeld, the Earl of Maddox, has been summoned by his parents, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bowmont, to attend a holiday party in the wilds of the country, far from his London townhouse. He suspects they command his attendance for far different reasons than a simple country party. When a storm strands his carriage, he’s forced to seek shelter at the only home for miles around, a local manor called Helton House. When Lady Pippa is reluctant to admit him, he does what he’s been raised to do—demand she provide him and his servants with shelter until the storm passes. But the beautiful woman draws his interest far more than he’s willing to admit. Can Lucas find a way out of the predicament his parents are planning?As Lady Pippa scrutinizes another arrogant, demanding lord, she is bombarded with memories of betrayals in her past. Can she forget those difficult life lessons to claim a Christmastide kiss from a perfect stranger?

    Trapped by his brother-in-law’s death into responsibility for his traumatized nephew, grieving sister, and an estate gone to ruin, loneliness overwhelms him. The first-rate husbandry of a neighboring farm and the woman who runs it draw him like a moth to flame. With Christmas coming, can he repair the damaged estate and far more damaged family? Dare he hope for love in the bargain? Catherine Wheatly is content to manage Songbird Cottage and care for her father and brothers. She has long since accepted that marriage and a home of her own are not in her future. She is content—until an interfering earl descends on Songbird determined to unearth their secrets and upend her world.

    It's a down-home Christmas story about tradition, family, and the shared experiences of women. Here, in a letter of her own, Lee Smith explains how she was inspired to write this celebrated epistolary novel:Dear Friends,Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.In The Christmas Letters, I have used this familiar format to illumine the lives, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of three generations of American women. Much of the story of The Christmas Letters is also told through shared recipes. As Mary, my favorite character, says, "I feel as if I have written out my life story in recipes! The Cool Whip and mushroom soup years, the hibachi and fondue period, then the quiche and crepes phase, and now it's these salsa years."I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday--Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are.With warmest greetings, Lee Smith

    With swords, through sorcery, and in the course of some of the hottest nights ever experienced on the Inner Hebrides, Scottish heroes stake their claims, both in the bedroom and out. Dreams come true and legends are born as ancient prophecies are fulfilled by time travelers from the future, in a Scotland where real historical figures exist side by side with Pagan magic and werewolves. Dashing lairds and Scottish barbarians fight for love and honor in a wild, magical world.Let Julianne MacLean, Patricia Grasso, Lois Greiman, Marta Acosta, Donna Grant, and many more lead you into the fierce, sexy, irresistible heart of a Scotland that is, was, ans might still be.

    Lord James Whitman is well aware of what others say about him. He has heard his name whispered behind closed doors and learned of his character being maligned without cause. But after his unearned reputation causes Iris to decline his marriage proposal, he is determined to show her the truth and win her love! Without her grandfather's guidance, Iris must decide whether to trust the London gossips or the tune of her own heart. Could she possibly love a man who is as horrid as some say he is? Or should she trust her instincts and what the duke tells her to be true? All Iris knows for sure is that Christmas day grows closer with each passing minute!