AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 9

The Starlight Mint Surprise Murder

Tagline: When Mel O’Rourke traded in her LAPD badge for a spatula, she had no idea baking could be so hard…or deadly

After injuring herself on the job as a Los Angeles cop, Mel O’Rourke leaves the force battered both physically and mentally.  Looking for a fresh start, she moves to a quiet mountain town and opens the Babbling Brook Inn.  Excited for her new life, Mel decides to participate in the town’s holiday cookie contest, but her newfound joy goes up in smoke when one of her guests turns up dead in her lobby.

Mel is tempted to attribute the death to natural causes but when another guest dies, her cop instincts kick in.  The local Sheriff tells her to stand down, but Mel can’t let it go.  With everything on the line, she has to push through her fears to catch the killer before more bodies drop, perhaps even her own.

https://bit.ly/3GxEGeQ

COMING NOVEMBER 16

Computer geeks write code… and sometimes they bake them in gingerbread.

BLURB:  Clay Blackstone, avowed bachelor, is an ambitious computer design engineer at a prestigious firm. When an accident puts his dad on crutches, he returns home to help with his family’s Christmas tree farm, never expecting to find romantic entanglement with an alluring woman he remembers as a tomboy in braids.As a single mother launching a bakery business, Shelby Turner has experience with measuring cups and watercolor paints, but not handsome, intriguing men—especially one who is her secret schoolgirl crush. Between her sweet treats, his tech savvy, and their combined chemistry, will they risk their hearts and discover the code to their happily ever after?

BUY LINK  https://books2read.com/u/bzdMyj

Competitive, work-obsessed Bella Simonetti has just been fired from her high-paying job at a Manhattan law firm. At an all-time low, she returns home and helps her parents at their small-town gift shop, but the business is failing and may not make it past the Christmas holidays.

Successful landscape architect Dean Jackson is like a son to Bella’s parents. But he’s a persistent annoyance to her—he seems to have forgotten his unforgivable blunder thirteen years earlier.

When Bella transforms her parents’ gift shop into a cookie cottage, Dean’s generosity and magnetic smile are hard to resist, and those feelings of unrequited adolescent love come rushing back. But can Bella let go of the past and accept Dean for the man he is today?

Bio  

Maria Imbalzano is a retired matrimonial lawyer who now writes full time. Instead of drafting motions, legal memoranda, and briefs, although fascinating, she now spends her days creating memorable characters and taking them on their emotional journeys through her contemporary romance novels.

In addition to writing fiction, Maria is on the Friends of Thomas Edison State University Foundation Committee and serves on the finance committee for The Present Day Club. She has received the distinguished Family of Edison Award for her work with The Thomas Edison State University Foundation, the Iron Mike Professional Achievement Award from Trenton Catholic Academy, her alma mater, and was inducted into the Italian American National Hall of Fame.

Her novel, “Unchained Memories,” won the Wisconsin Romance Writers Write Touch Readers’ Award and the ACRA Readers’ Choice Heart of Excellence Award. “Sworn to Forget,” the first of the four-book Sworn Sisters Series was a finalist for the illustrious RONE award as well as the Book Buyers Best Award. Two of her novellas won first place awards in the NEST (National Excellence in Story Telling) contest. “The Blueberry Swirl Waltz” won in the short historical category and “A Song For Another Day” won in the short contemporary category. Both of these novellas are also finalists for the Beverley Award.

Visit Maria at www.mariaimbalzano.com

Buy Links

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Excerpt

“I agree with Dean. Barb’s Gift Cottage has been in Princeton for thirty years. You don’t decide one day to revamp the entire business. Get rid of the old, make way for the new. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Bella bit her tongue before responding, reminding herself to stay cool. “Okay. I’m open to anything. Let’s talk about your ideas to stay afloat.” She sat, poised with her pad in front of her, pen in hand.

Silence.

She looked directly at her dad first, eyebrow arched. “I’m listening.” Then she scanned over to Dean.

Her gaze moved up to his eyes—sea green in the harsh kitchen light but beautiful just the same.

His gaze locked with hers and held her hostage— an unwilling prisoner to his warden. All ire morphed into a swirling eddy of primal lust, and she felt herself disappearing into his aura. She needed to save herself as well as her ego. Fighting the pull, she surfaced, blinking to clear her eyes, inhaling to bring her back to the present.

She disconnected and glanced at her parents. Had they noticed she’d been missing?

The smallest smile quirked Dean’s lips—surely acknowledging her lapse into Dean-land. She reached for the annoyance she’d let slip from her grasp and pulled it back into her arsenal.

AVAILABLE NOW!

Let it Melt

Christmas tours brim with cookies, lights, and…unexpected romance?

Divorced, empty nester Merilee is on a roll. Filled with scrumptious cookies and old-fashioned fun, her Christmas bus tours aim to add festive spirit to her hometown and new meaning to her lackluster life. Too bad her reserved driver slams the brakes on fun.

Widowed farmer Ross needs a little joy to combat his December blues. Behind the wheel, he wears a Santa suit but can’t muster a convincing ho-ho-ho. Too many memories block his road to happiness…until irrepressible Merilee sparks a snowstorm of unexpected feelings.

In two weeks of holiday tours, Ross might drive Merilee crazy…or will romance snowball inside their lonely hearts?

Amazon

AVAILABLE NOW!

House calls and Christmas cookies . . . a sweet combination or recipe for disaster? 

Before she can let up and enjoy some holiday cheer, real estate agent Alana Drake has work to do. With Christmas moving in fast, she has clients to meet with, houses to show, and cookies to bake. Every open house deserves her special touch—homemade and hand-decorated sugar cookies for a warm welcome. And she needs several dozen for upcoming holiday events and open houses.

But a poorly timed stop at the grocery store could upend more than her bag of groceries. Running into Doctor Justin Teague—literally—shakes up Alana’s tidy world. The chance encounter leaves her with a bum ankle, forces her to reconsider some dating ideals, and reveals new information about a longtime nemesis.

When all she wanted was to bake some cookies…

Amazon

Apple Books

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COMING NOVEMBER 9

This witch isn’t giving up without a fight. 

Modern-day witch Cassie Moore’s cozy life turns upside down when her friend foresees the wrecking ball that threatens to destroy Cassie’s home and workplace. But Cassie isn’t giving up without a fight. She casts a well-intended spell meant to save her apartment and her job. But magic is unpredictable, especially when her friend casts a little charm of her own that has Cassie lusting after the man she desperately wants to despise.

Jack Quinn has had his eyes on Lakeside Books for years, and he couldn’t be happier the owner is finally ready to sell. He has big plans for the cozy waterfront property, but he didn’t expect to care about the store or its employees. And he never imagined he’d be drawn to a certain brown-eyed saleswoman.

Almost as if by magic.

Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/m0BJBV

AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 16

Exchanging gunfire is easier than facing reintegration at Christmas alone.

A package determined to derail his scheduled future delivered by a mystery woman. A tiny note hints at who she is—and how to find her.

When veteran and acting Brigadier General Dominic Cage returns from deployment days before Christmas, he’s unprepared for the shortbread cookies pressed into his hands in a case of mistaken identity by a stunning woman. Unable to forget her, Cage trusts Violet’s promise of a true Christmas—until the lines of his reality blur.

Damaged and resolute, and unable to escape the gunfire that haunts him, Cage’s choice could cost them everything.

Amazon

A personal bit of information that I’ll slowly be filtering through over time: Most of you know that I’m an Aussie defence wife to a veteran and that we’ve spent years working through PTSD. Actually, nearly every generation of my family has produced at least one soldier going back quite a long way.

Shortbread Shakedown was inspired by hubs experience in the US, travelling out of uniform. An elderly gentleman he didn’t know approached him with a bag of shortbread cookies to say ‘thank you for your service”. The gentleman hands out cookies his wife makes every weekend at the airport. He refused to take hubs’ explanation that he wasn’t from the US, but the man had recognised him as military regardless. As an Afghanistan veteran, hubs was floored, and that moment still brings me to tears.

Shortbread Shakedown is centred around this tradition, and I’m rather heavily invested in this book that releases November 16 as an ebook only due to length.

The second part of my reasoning for this book is a little less serious but no less heart wrenching. Last year, my then 4 year old son finished Kindy and we discovered afterward that the little girl he was best friends with wasn’t going to his school. As an ESL family, I’d had little contact with Violet’s dad. On the final afternoon of kindy, my son burst into tears and I discovered to my absolute horror that Violet had been his first girlfriend. Amidst tears on both sides, he made me promise to write a story about Violet….and so here she is.

And now I’m in tears. Again.

Linzer Tarts and Broken Hearts

Tag Line: Christmas Cookies aren’t the only thing heating up in the kitchen this Christmas

Amber Talbot’s daughter, Beth, has invited her new best friend, Joanna, to bake Christmas cookies this year. Officer Jace Gunderson, single dad, insists on checking out the family first. From there, thanks to the two inseparable first graders, Amber and Jace’s lives intertwine over the holidays where they, too, become inseparable. But Amber doesn’t need another lawman in her life. Her first husband was killed in the line of duty. Can Jace win her over, despite her reluctance to commit to their fledgling relationship? Or will Amber reject his advances and ruin everyone’s Christmas?

Amazon

The Wild Rose Press (my publisher) is doing a special event this season with a cookie themed set of stories. All the stories are set in the December time and all have to have a cookie theme. That was the only criteria. So there are a lot for you to choose from. There are mysteries, contemporary romances, paranormals, and more! So pull up a chair, grab your favorite beverage and cookie, and sit back and enjoy. Note: the stories are all short and sweet (novella length) so are quick reads too.

Check them all out at The Wild Rose Press

Or: Amazon

And, over the next few weeks, I’ll be spotlighting the individual books so enjoy! I’ve already had the chance to read some of them and they are positively delicious!