But is it really an aphrodisiac instead?Motorcycle mechanic Sam McGuire is surprised to find a gaily wrapped box on his doorstep with a piece of fruitcake inside. The note on the present is an invitation to a holiday party.Intrigued, Sam attends the party -- mostly to get more of the fruitcake he falls in love with -- and meets his new neighbor, Jay Merriweather. The lure of Jay’s big family and its holiday tradition of enjoying Grandma’s fruitcake hook Sam, as does the sexy man himself.But Sam can't imagine why handsome, college-educated Jay would want someone like him, who was raised in a children’s home and barely graduated high school.Can the magic of the holiday season help two men who seem so different come together like the ingredients in a well-made fruitcake?

    He’s checked and double-checked his to-do list, because nothing stresses him out like the unexpected. Confident everything will run smoothly, Paxton embarks on his yearly snowshoed hike through the Rocky Mountains near his home. His perfectly planned evening is cut short by Logan Charles’s careless enjoyment of his brother’s snowmobile, and Paxton is stranded in the woods. It’s the worst thing that could’ve possibly happened to him—or maybe the best. A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2015 Advent Calendar package "Sleigh Ride".

    Things don't turn out quite as he planned, but sometimes Santa knows best and two out of three ain't bad.

    That changes when he's surprised by a supercenter employee keeping the Christmas spirit alive by singing and doing some impromptu dance moves. Ryan Jolly is bouncy and a little flamboyant... and Blake is immediately smitten with him. Despite being total opposites, Blake's heart is captured by Ryan's bubbly personality and sweet smile, and when attraction flares between them, Blake starts to hope his new Christmas wish--to spend more than the holiday with Ryan--might come true.

    One relative away from homelessness, he's taking the bus to Sacramento, where his cousin has offered a house-sitting job and a new start. He has one goal, and that's to get his life back on track. Friends, pets, lovers? Need not apply.Finn Stewart takes one look at Adam as he's applying to Candy Heaven and decides he's much too fascinating to leave alone. Finn is bright and shiny—and has never been hurt. Adam is wary of his attention from the very beginning—Finn is dangerous to every sort of peace Adam is forging, and Adam may just be too damaged to let him in at all.But Finn is tenacious, and Adam's new boss, Darrin, doesn't take bullshit for an answer. Adam is going to have to ask himself which is harder—letting Finn in or living without him? With the holidays approaching it seems like an easy question, but Adam knows from experience that life is seldom simple, and the world seldom cooperates with hope, faith, or the plans of cats and men.

    Erik seems to enjoy the game of twelve days of naughty gifts, but can Kevin overcome his fear of rejection enough to go through with his plan and offer himself to Erik on Christmas Eve?

    Can a homemade bear, a friend-made video, and a sock-eating goat become the traditions that keep Ben and Aaron together?

    Unfortunately, they’re also the definition of dirt poor, and they don’t have the money for nonessentials like decorations. Or a turkey. Or gifts. Between the recent death of Casey’s beloved momma and Ellis’s estrangement from his family, all they have is each other.When Ellis finds the saddest-looking Christmas tree south of the Mason-Dixon Line thrown away outside his workplace and brings it home to Casey, things look up. Life is still a struggle, but wealth isn’t always measured in money, and what seems worthless to others is often invaluable to the people who love it.

    When the heat rises, will they get cold feet?Getting snowed in at a remote cottage in Wales with someone he’d fancied for ages isn’t exactly how Sam expected to spend Christmas. His feelings for Ryan are pointless. Ryan’s straight—or so he thought.Until now, Ryan’s kept his feelings for Sam buried. Why ruin a friendship over what might only be gay experimentation? Playing it cool seems safer, until a cold snap makes sharing body heat vital. In their Welsh safe haven, anything seems possible.As Ryan’s reserve melts away, Sam wants more than stolen kisses under the mistletoe. But a sudden thaw means making decisions. They could face the New Year together—unless one of them gets cold feet.word count: 32,000 approx

    The only real relationship he's ever been in was with the subject of his best-selling book, "Caged," a young man held hostage for five years. Unfortunately, it was entirely one-sided, since Zach was already involved with someone else.So the last thing Brian expects when he goes in for treatment for an injured knee is to develop feelings for his physical therapist. But Jerry seems intent on either avoiding Brian or demanding more than he is willing to give, and Brian doesn’t know if he has the courage to face his past to forge a future.

    Now, existing in a new life as Jacob Somerville, he’s again running from fear and memories, only to end up where he started. As Jacob struggles to reconnect with his father and brothers, he realizes that his lover, Craig Zhao, was the only thing filling his empty heart and standing between him and ghosts of the past. It will take the power of love—from his family, from Craig, and from himself—for Jacob to see that his life truly is filled with the promise of what can be.

    Thrown out of his home for being gay, he is left without money or, it seems, anywhere to go. Until a stranger shows him that some people do give a lot more than a damn.Ben Hamilton is a rookie cop in his small home town. He finds a young throwaway, fresh from the city, sleeping on a bench in the churchyard on a snowy Christmas Eve. Can he be the one to give Zachary his own Christmas miracle?* * * * *First published December 2010

    One Christmas Eve that changes the courses of both their lives.Henry’s homeless and only wants a warm place to sleep on the coldest night of the year. A forgotten open window in a darkened house entices Henry inside with the promise of warmth and comfort. He knows it’s wrong, but he promises himself he’ll be out before the owner wakes on Christmas morning. Except he oversleeps and the homeowner, Jim, discovers a bearded stranger sawing logs under his dining room table. When the shock and the drama that ensues dies down, Henry and Jim discover that they might have found, quite unexpectedly, the Christmas miracle they’d both been longing for—love and home.

    The kind of day he loves, even if the looming New Year's Eve leaves him feeling nostalgic and a little lonely. But then the last person he ever expected to see walks through the door of his shop, and Sherlock realizes that some things don't fade with time, but grow stronger.

    He tries to cover it up, but Marty tells all, and the love of Danny's life, Jake, throws him out. Over the next year, Danny tries to sort his life out with the hopes that when the next Christmas comes around, Jake will give him the chance to put things right.