Small Town Rural Romance

From best-selling authors in the Amish genre come four delicious stories perfect for celebrating love, joy, and the holiday season. "Cookies and Cheer" by Amy Clipston: Alyssa Byler wants to build a sugar cookie nativity scene for her bakery’s Christmas window display - all she needs is the right cookie cutters. She turns to handsome blacksmith Kyle Smoker.

Emma Laurent has always preferred helping others to asking for help. But now, she’s the one in need. Her stepmother is selling her late father’s candy shop, her grandmother’s assisted-living facility has become a financial burden, and the anniversary of her fiancé’s death is quickly approaching. Rather than face her problems, Emma does what she does best - finds someone else to help by offering a mother and son with nowhere to go somewhere to stay.

When 73-year-old Jen announces that she is going to marry Eddie, a man she met just a few months previously on a beach on Boxing Day, her four best friends from aqua aerobics are flabbergasted. The wedding is booked and, when the groom decides to have a stag trip to Las Vegas, the ladies arrange a hen party to beat all others - a week in the city of love, Paris.

Always believing she was an ugly duckling, Chrissy Jenkins thought she had finally turned into a swan when her real-life Prince Charming swept her off her feet. But as his true character began to crack his perfect facade, Chrissy realized that she was better off without him. Returning to her ancestral home on Cannonball Island, she reboots her life, successfully reinventing herself as a chef at Blossoms, an up-and-coming restaurant. But despite her newfound self-confidence, she still doesn’t trust her taste in men. So when she meets Jared Chandler, a handsome ship salvager, Chrissy’s certain she can keep him as a friend....

Few women in Compton Magna could fail to notice the arrival of Luca O'Brien. The village stud's new manager, known internationally as the Horse Maker, brims softly spoken sex appeal from his wild blonde curls to his leather boot soles. Gossipy riding quartet The Saddle Bags are all smitten. Only his old friend Ronnie Percy sees how much Luca's changed from the rising star she met a decade ago, the golden armour masking deep secrets. But as Ronnie soon discovers, Luca's slow smile and sympathetic hands belie a volcanic core.

After the death of her father, veterinarian Charity Wyatt feels particularly lost. Thankfully, she’s not alone. Living beside the McCloud Ranch brought good friend—and notorious bad boy—Lachlan McCloud into her life at an early age, and they’ve had each other’s backs ever since.

When Alaina finds herself pregnant and alone, she knows she’s in a tight spot. Small towns like hers tend to raise eyebrows at unwed mothers and she knows the vicious gossip mill will soon be churning. Thankfully, her ruggedly stoic childhood protector, Gus McCloud, knows a thing or two about guarding secrets. Offering Alaina a marriage on paper is the least he can do.

Being bonded to Caden Blackburn used to be all I dreamed of. Those dreams were crushed the moment this pack branded my entire bloodline traitors for challenging his father. Life in Silver Falls isn't easy. As the only packmate unable to shift, I'm considered broken. No one wants a useless mate. Especially not Caden. Imperfections don't fit within the rigid way he rules our pack as alpha. I never thought he'd look at me with anything other than fury until our bond awakens.

They are just about as bad and evil as outlaw gangs come. But in the end, they finally go straight.

Lucy Parsons wants absolutely nothing to do with the Westmoore family or the maple syrup they produce. When Sierra Westmoore blows back into town after her father's death and tries to rent a room at Lucy's family's bed-and-breakfast, The Maple Inn, Lucy kicks her out on the spot. It doesn't matter that Sierra hasn't set foot in Maple Run in fifteen years—the Westmoores are not allowed. But small towns don't leave a lot of room to hide, and Sierra and her brother, Drake, have set their sights on improving the town's opinion of them now that their father is gone.

After growing up around Hunter McCloud, cowgirl Elsie Garrett considers herself immune to his particular brand of cowboy. Her brother’s best friend is too big, too broad, too everything for comfort. But when relationship-shy Elsie decides it’s finally time for her to get some romantic experience, Hunter suddenly might be useful after all. Maybe he, with his many casual hookups, is the perfect cowboy to teach her how to flirt?

Cowboy Wolf Garrett is delighted his brother is happily married—really, he is. But time can never heal Wolf’s own wounds, so being surrounded by such marital joy is a bit…much. A trip to his extended family’s ranch in Copper Ridge seems the ideal change of scenery. Until he meets local innkeeper Violet Donnelly and realizes he’s exchanged one form of torture for another—trying, and spectacularly failing, to resist their instant, wildly hot chemistry.

Zeke has no intention of getting married - until he buys a ranch next door to Natalie Patterson, a sexy divorcee with two kids, a zany extended family, and a philandering ex-husband involved in shady business dealings. When Natalie's 12-year-old son vandalizes Zeke's property and Natalie is unable to pay for the damages, Zeke offers to let the boy work off the debt. As Zeke struggles to instill a sense of responsibility and self-worth in the troubled youngster, he finds his life being turned upside down by Natalie and her sultry singing voice.

Michael Thomas Ford Mike Monaghan is the bartender at the Engine Room, a meeting place for the small but thriving community of gay men in Cold Falls, New York. As Mike pours beer, wipes glasses and hears everything, he's also witness to the men who come here looking for what they need--sex, direction, friendship, spiritual fulfillment, and love. People like: Stephen Darby--As an accountant, he knows many secrets. But Stephen has his own secret, one he's never been able to share with anyone close to him.

The Lone Texan features Sage McMurray, a recent widow whose life is about to take another unexpected turn. One would think that the loss of a husband was plenty for anyone to deal with, but then Sage is taken hostage in a robbery and auctioned off to the highest bidder. The bidder in question, however, has more than a few surprises in store.

No one knows tough-as-nails bar owner Cara Thompson better than her best friend, rancher Jace Carson. And when Cara needs someone to stay with her at Lone Rock’s most historic, and possibly haunted, hotel to purchase it, Jace is the man for the job—even when the only furnished room has just one bed. One night shouldn’t be enough to change years of friendship, but a single kiss melts away years of restraint. As the sun rises, Cara might have secured her hotel, but has she ruined her friendship with Jace forever?

Ashland, Tennessee was where I planned to start over and become the woman I wanted to be; a woman who was fun and just a little bit reckless. The need to break out of my shell led to one wild night with a man I never planned on seeing again. But when the tattooed stranger showed up unexpectedly at my new job, he made it clear that once wasn't going to be enough for him. As the president of a motorcycle club with a checkered past, Courtland Pope should have scared me, but no matter how hard I tried to stay away, the pull to him was too strong to ignore.

Quint Echohawk is a lawman, not a rancher, but he's a Calder through and through. And when someone sets out to undermine the Calders' Texas outfit, it's time for him to step in and investigate. From the moment Quint's boots touch Texas dirt, it's clear that everyone in town is running scared from Max Rutledge, the ruthless owner of a competing ranch. Posing as a cowboy looking for work, Quint has no one to trust but "Empty" Garner and his granddaughter, Dallas.

Eloise Foley, known to her friends as Weezie, has been through the divorce from hell. Her ex-husband Tal (aka Talmadge Evans III) was awarded their house in Savannah's historic district, the house that Weezie had spent years painstakingly restoring to its original splendor. Weezie was awarded the two-bedroom carriage house on the same property. Each was sure the other would sell.

Raised in a cult where opinions and freedom in women were not tolerated, Mara Greene narrowly escaped a life as a child bride—one where she would’ve been shared and owned by all the men in the compound. Her testimony helped put the cult leader in prison, but she’s never truly gotten past the horrors inflicted on her. Her conditioning to keep silent persists even now—despite having found a safe haven at the Resting Warrior Ranch.