Release Blitz, Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway:
Fran Cuthbert Ruins Christmas by Lisa Henry & J.A. Rock
Welcome (back) to Christmas Valley. Where it’s Christmas every. F@$#ing. Day.
It’s your typical Hallmark movie plot: my big city boyfriend dumped me, so my adorable five-year-old daughters and I moved back to my hometown just in time for Christmas. I guess the magic of the holiday is going to show me what I really wanted all along, or something.
But on Hallmark, people aren’t usually mainlining their mother’s Xanax. Or stealing the last available Peachblossom Pony Pal from their hot doctor because they have to give their kids the best Christmas ever. And when they run into their high school sweetheart, they don’t usually face the gulf of lies that exists between Cass Sullivan and me.
Oh yeah, and their hometown isn’t located directly up Christmas’s butthole.
I left Christmas Valley because I couldn’t listen to one more carol or look at one more tinsel-wrapped streetlamp. But moving to Boston meant leaving Cass, and that has always been my one regret. I mean, I also regret the box of Franzia in my closet, being publicly dumped, agreeing to take tap dancing lessons with my mom, and the fact that I can’t seem to open my mouth without a little white lie popping out. But mostly Cass.
When I need someone to play Santa for my girls’ favorite Christmas tradition, Cass steps in. Suddenly, I’m falling for him like we’re seventeen again. Can we put aside two decades’ worth of baggage and give each other a second chance? Can he help me build a life in Christmas Valley? And has he really been banging our former geometry teacher?
Only Christmastime will tell. If the holidays don’t kill me first.
Fran Cuthbert Ruins Christmas is a sweet, low-heat holiday novella featuring a second-chance romance, a hot mess MC who could use a steadying hand, adorable kids and dogs, and a guaranteed HEA.
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There were several coffee shops in Christmas Valley, but only one that bucked the tinsel and tinny carols trend, and only because it was two blocks back from Main Street where the tourists rarely went. It had, for a time, been called The Main Street Cafe, because it was on what had formerly been Main Street up until the 1940s or some shit, and the Historical Society hadn’t wanted to change the name, even when the street name changed. Finally, after a raucous town hall meeting during which a mint-chip muffin was thrown, it was agreed that keeping the name was too confusing, and The Main Street Cafe became Pioneer Coffee House. I’d worked there one summer when I was in high school, but after too many steam burns, dropped plates, and customer complaints, Mrs. Summers and I had mutually agreed I was not cut out to be a barista. Back then I’d thought she was at least six hundred years old, so I was surprised to discover when I arrived that she was not only still alive, but only looked to be in her late sixties. I guess when you’re a kid, everyone over thirty looks old.
I still remembered the first time Em said someone was “old, just like you, Daddy.”
After all the times the girls had managed to smack me in the nose and kick me in the balls while climbing me like a jungle gym, you’d think mere words couldn’t hurt.
“Frances Cuthbert?” Mrs. Summers exclaimed, and everyone in the shop turned to look at her, then at me.
I did one of those little waves that tried to be casual and understated but wasn’t. My hand ended up stopped in midair, like a storefront mannequin that’d been left in an awkward position, so I put it on my hip. It didn’t help. “Hi, Mrs. Summers.”
The worst part about coming back to the town I’d sworn never to come back to again as long as I lived—apart from everyone remembering I’d said that in the first place—was that whenever I ran into an old acquaintance, I’d have to go through the whole story all over again. Or at least the version of the story where my life hadn’t spectacularly imploded and I wasn’t totally pitiful: Yes, Mrs. Summers, it has been a while. Yes, I’m fine. Just great. Yes, I am back in town. For good? Oh, how about this weather?
I’d just settled into a frantic monologue about climate change, aware of Mrs. Summers’s increasingly confused expression but somehow unable to stop myself from talking, when a light touch on my shoulder made me spin around.
Cass.
God. Did he have to be so effortlessly attractive? Especially when I was composed entirely of word vomit and pit stains and my hand was still on my hip?
“Fran,” he said. His eyes crinkled when he smiled, and that was new. Cass wore his age as well as he wore his cable-knit sweaters. He nodded at a corner table. “Our table’s over here.”
Cass had snagged us a table at the back corner of the shop. I sat and started to rearrange the little packets of sugar in the holder.
Cass smiled. “You still do that, huh?”
“What? Oh, yeah, I guess so.” I left the sugar alone and took off my scarf. Then I still felt too warm, so I had to stand up and take my coat off. I hung it over the back of my chair, and it immediately fell off. I picked it up and rehung it, then picked up my scarf, which had also somehow dropped to the floor. While I was down there, I found my wallet, which must have fallen out of my coat pocket, because of course it had.
Cass was still smiling as I sat down again, and I had the sudden urge to tell him that I’d nursed my twin daughters through simultaneous bouts of gastro when they were three. I was not as incompetent as I appeared. Not that I cared what Cass thought of me. We were ancient history, me and him, even if he did remember my sugar arranging compulsion with a sort of gentle fondness.
Cass looked at me expectantly. “What do you want, Fran?”
“Oh, God. I don’t know. Isn’t that the eternal question? What do any of us really want?”
His brows tugged together for a fraction of a second. “Well, coffee, I figured.”
I took a moment too long to laugh, and then I laughed too loudly and stopped too suddenly. I hid my burning face behind the little plastic menu board on the table. “I would like a hot chocolate, please.”
I kept staring at the board until I heard him walk away to put our order in.
To celebrate the release of A Husband for Hartwell, JA & Lisa are giving away a $20 Amazon Gift Card!
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About Lisa:
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
Lisa has been published since 2012, and was a LAMBDA finalist for her quirky, awkward coming-of-age romance Adulting 101, and a Rainbow Awards finalist for 2019’s Anhaga.
To connect with Lisa on social media, you can find her here:
Website
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She also has a Facebook group where you’ll be kept in the loop with updates on releases, have a chance to win prizes, and probably see lots of lots of pictures of her dog and cats. You can find it here: Lisa Henry’s Hangout.
About J.A. Rock:
J.A. Rock is the author of over twenty LGBTQ romance, suspense, and horror novels, as well as an occasional contributor to HuffPo Queer Voices. J.A.’s books have received Lambda Literary, INDIEFAB, and EPIC Award nominations, and The Subs Club received the 2016 National Leather Association-International Novel Award. 24/7 was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews. J.A. lives in Chicago with an extremely judgmental dog, Professor Anne Studebaker.
https://jarockauthor.com
facebook.com/ja.rock.39
twitter.com/jarockauthor
The Book Nook, our shared FB Group with Sarah Honey:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rockhenryhoney
