Book Title: Gingerbread Mistletoe
Author: Amy Aislin
Publisher: Self-published
Cover Artist: Natasha Snow
Series: Lighthouse Bay #2
Genre/s: Contemporary m/m holiday romance
Trope/s: Enemies to lovers, small town, forced proximity
Length: 62,000 words
It’s book two in the Lighthouse Bay series, but can be read as a standalone.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Universal Amazon Link | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb
The last thing Jeff wants is to spend time with the man who totaled his car—the one he spent years restoring with his late father. But if he wants to resurrect his childhood town’s annual outdoor hockey tournament, he’s got no choice.
The last thing Mika wants is to work with the guy who took off right after the accident, without ensuring he was okay. And working together on organizing Jeff’s proposed tournament sounds like a complete nightmare. He’s got enough on his plate after surviving cancer.
Sparks fly as they’re forced to work together, but is that enough for them to set their differences aside and pull off the tournament in only two weeks? Or will they prove to be immune to the magic of Christmas?
Thank you for joining me to celebrate the release of my newest m/m romance, Gingerbread Mistletoe, the second book in my Lighthouse Bay series. If you like holiday novels set in a wintery small town and enemies to lovers romances with a sprinkling of Christmas magic, be sure to check it out.
Love Bytes Reviews has allowed me to briefly take over the blog today, and I’m sharing an exclusive excerpt featuring one of my favourite exchanges between Mika and Jeff. Check it out below!
***
“Mika Jones.”
He turned, practiced television smile already in place, to greet whatever fan had recognized him. Nobody in town ever full-named him.
It was only Jeff.
The smile slipped off Mika’s face. So much for hoping Jeff wasn’t looking for him anymore. Jeff’s ears were red from the cold and the petty side of Mika smirked a bit. “Oh. It’s you. Grudgy McGrudgerson.” Mika popped the last bite of cookie in his mouth and wiped his gloved hand on his jeans to remove the crumbs. “Something I can help you with? Did you forget something at headquarters yesterday? Your sparkling personality, maybe?”
Was that a smile playing around Jeff’s lips? In the next second, a muscle ticked in his jaw. “No. I wanted to speak with you about something.”
“If it’s about the car, you can fuck off about that,” Mika grumbled, wincing when a couple of parents scowled at him. “I’ve already—”
Jeff held up a hand clad in a black glove. “It’s not about the car. It’s about a new event for the Christmas activity lineup.”
Mika moved off the busy path and into the small alley between a couple of nearby stalls. Jeff followed. “The hockey tournament? You must be desperate to see it happen if you want to work with little ol’ me on it.”
Another muscle tick. “I am.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, ignoring how it made the bones in his forearms ache, Mika narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
That seemed to stump Jeff. His brows pulled low and his mouth opened to respond once, twice. Finally, he drew himself up and said, “Why not?”
“I’ll tell you why not. First, it’s incredibly last minute and I don’t have time to plan a new event in two weeks. Second, we have to find a) participants, and b) sponsors for the prizes and maybe even equipment. And three, this event wasn’t in the town budget, which means I don’t have the money for it. That’s why not.”
“I’ll sponsor it.”
Mika blinked at him. “You . . . What?”
“I’ll sponsor it,” Jeff repeated. “My company, I mean. I’m the CEO of—”
“Sport U Apparel. I know. I looked you up, Jeff Bellmoor.” He’d done so out of boredom during last night’s insomnia. “You’re not just the CEO, you’re the founder. Sport U is the number one sports apparel and equipment company in the country. It’s environmentally responsible, equal opportunity, and has competitive pricing. What will sponsoring a hockey tournament in a small town nobody outside of this region has heard of help? You think it’ll look good to your board or something?”
Jeff’s gaze shifted. “That’s right.”
Liar. Mika couldn’t begin to guess what Jeff’s motivation was, but he’d bet money it didn’t have anything to do with the board. “What part of it, exactly, do you want to sponsor?”
“All of it.”
“All of it,” Mika repeated slowly.
Jeff waved a hand as if to encompass, well, all of it. “Equipment for the participants, costs of printing tickets, web hosting for the participant registration forms, fees to rent the pond. I’ll donate prizes too.”
Fees to rent the pond. Laughter tickled the back of Mika’s throat. As if there were fees to rent park space. This was Lighthouse Bay, not some big city where even parking costs were more than they were worth. “You can’t donate the prizes,” he told Jeff. “You’ve got to let local businesses pitch in where they can, so they feel included. If you don’t, word will get around and you won’t have any participants or spectators for your tournament.”
Jeff nodded once. “Okay. I’ll talk to local business owners then.”
“You’re an unfamiliar face around here. They’re not going to give you anything.”
“I lived here until I was eighteen.”
Mika cocked his head. “When was the last time you visited?”
Jeff’s mouth opened. Closed.
“Got friends or family still in the area who can vouch for you?”
Lips flattening, Jeff shook his head. “Not anymore.”
Mika’s sigh fogged the air between them. He was getting colder now that he wasn’t moving, and he wiggled his toes in his boots. “Look, it sounds like it’d be a fun event but—”
“The proceeds are donated back to the town.”
“Huh?”
“Proceeds from ticket sales used to be donated to the Lighthouse Bay food bank when I was little,” Jeff said, urgency lending an undercurrent to his voice that told Mika just how important this tournament was to him.
Pleasing the board, my ass.
“You can select a different charity, of course,” Jeff continued. “Or even donate it to the high school as part of a college scholarship for a graduating senior. Or hell, put it back into the town coffers, I don’t know.”
The food bank, huh?
“I’ll do everything,” Jeff offered, covering one red ear that must’ve been freezing. “I’ll plan it all, beginning to end. I heard you when you said you don’t have time, and while I’ll need your help here and there, I’ll do the bulk of it.”
“Aren’t you here on vacation?”
Jeff waved that away. “Doesn’t matter.”
Shaking out his arms, Mika resigned himself to the inevitable. “Listen, I don’t have a free second to talk about this today.”
“But I—”
“I’m heading into town in about twenty minutes,” Mika spoke over him. “Meet me at the entrance to the park then and we can talk more as I walk.”
Jeff looked around himself. “Aren’t we in town?”
“I mean . . .” Mika gestured vaguely towards Main. “Christmas Lane. I need to pick up a few things for my vendors, but I need to finish my rounds first.” See if anybody else needed anything and get the dolly out of the small storage area at the back of Santa’s workshop.
“Your rounds?”
“Twenty minutes,” Mika repeated, and with a pat to Jeff’s shoulder, he brushed by him, pushing aside the tingle in his palm and the subtle scent of Jeff, and stepped back into the market.
Amy’s lived with her head in the clouds since she first picked up a book as a child, and being fluent in two languages means she’s read a lot of books! She first picked up a pen on a rainy day in fourth grade when her class had to stay inside for recess. Tales of treasure hunts with her classmates eventually morphed into love stories between men, and she’s been writing ever since. She writes evenings and weekends—or whenever she isn’t at her full-time day job saving the planet at Canada’s largest environmental non-profit.
An unapologetic introvert, Amy reads too much and socializes too little, with no regrets. She loves connecting with readers. Join her Facebook Group, Amy Aislin’s Readers, to stay up-to-date on upcoming releases and for access to early teasers, find her on Instagram and Twitter, or sign up for her infrequent newsletter.
Author Links
Website | Facebook group | Facebook page | Facebook
Newsletter | Instagram | BookBub | Twitter
Pinterest | Goodreads | QueeRomance Ink
Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win
a signed paperback of Gingerbread Mistletoe
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/c8c1c64116/
Follow the tour and check out the other blog posts and reviews here