I’m so happy you’ve made your way to my First Kiss Friday blog! Please help me welcome my dear friend Jude Knight who has an excerpt from If Mistletoe Could Tell Tales which is currently on sale. Happy reading and enjoy, my lovelies, and take it away Jude!
This excerpt is from Gingerbread Bride, which is a novella in my Christmas story collection, If Mistletoe Could Tell Tales. The collection is half price this month.
Excerpt:
Rick wanted to see her alone, and Mary had a fair idea why. He thought he’d compromised her when he helped her out of the tower, and he wanted to do the honorable thing. Mary wasn’t having it. Enid might be satisfied to trap a husband, but Mary would rather stay single all her life than be married to someone reluctant to have her. Not that Bosville was reluctant anymore. Someone—Enid probably—had told him about Enid’s trust fund, and he was as happy as a dog with two tails.
Mary wished them well. She did. But if Rick insisted on proposing, she would turn him down, even though it would break her heart. How she wished he wanted her. For a while, she had hoped… but he had said nothing.
She made her way back to the kitchen. Baking always made her feel better, and gingerbread brides would be a fine betrothal addition to tonight’s Christmas party.
The kissing boughs had all been hung, making it perilous to traverse the house and garden. By the time the party started, Mary had been kissed at least twenty times, all polite salutes on the cheek.
The party spilled all over the house and beyond: carols around the pianoforte in one of the parlors, silly games in another, a continual feast in the dining room, and dancing outside in the crisp night air. Mary managed to avoid being alone with Rick until almost the end of the evening, when he cornered her in a temporarily deserted parlor, most of the party out on the dance lawn in the garden.
“Mary.” There it was again. Her name, hummed in that beautiful voice of his, sounding like music. She turned her face upwards, tipping her cheek within easy reach, but he curved his neck as he bent, so that his lips touched hers.
They felt warm and soft and so gentle; as light as a feather, brushing along her mouth as if they would flutter past, then returning to settle. She stood frozen, all consciousness focused on the point of connection. Persuasive lips grazed against hers, until she responded, softening against him.
He moved closer then, sliding his hands around her waist. His mouth opened, and his tongue swept along her lower lip. Startled, she drew back, and he let her go, though his eyes clung to hers.
“Mary, dear Mary, may I…?”
If Mistletoe Could Tell Tales
By Jude Knight
(A lunch-time reads collection)
Wanted: love stories for a carriage-maker’s daughter, an admiral’s child, the unwanted wife of an earl, a nabob’s heiress, a duke’s cousin, and a fanatic’s niece
In this 2017 box set, you’ll find four of Jude’s Christmas novellas plus two Christmas-themed short stories. All together in one 97,500 word volume for your holiday pleasure, and only $1.99 for the whole of December.
Candle’s Christmas Chair (A novella in The Golden Redepennings series)
They are separated by social standing and malicious lies. He has till she finishes his mother’s chair to convince her they belong together.
Gingerbread Bride (A novella in The Golden Redepenning series)
Mary runs from an unwanted marriage and finds adventure, danger and her girlhood hero, coming once more to her rescue.
Magnus and the Christmas Angel (from Lost in the Tale)
Scarred by years in captivity, Magnus has fought English Society to be accepted as the true Earl of Fenchurch. Now he faces the hardest battle of all: to win the love of his wife.
Lord Calne’s Christmas Ruby
Lalamani prefers her aunt’s quiet village to fashionable London, its vicious harpies, and its importunate fortune hunters. Philip wishes she wasn’t so rich, or he wasn’t so poor.
A Suitable Husband
A chef from the slums, however talented, is no fit mate for the cousin of a duke, however distant. But Cedrica can dream. (first published in Holly and Hopeful Hearts, a Bluestocking Belles collection.)
All that Glisters (from Hand-Turned Tales)
Rose is unhappy in the household of her fanatical uncle. Thomas, a young merchant from Canada, offers a glimpse of another possible life. If she is brave enough to reach for it.
Buy links
Books2Read: https://books2read.com/IfMistletoeCouldTellTales
Meet Jude:
Jude always wanted to be a novelist. She started in her teens, but life kept getting in the way. Years passed, and with them dozens of unfinished manuscripts. The fear grew. What if she tried, failed, and lost the dream forever? The years since 2014 have brought 17 novels, 16 novella, 6 volumes of short stories, a number of awards, and hundreds of positive reviews. The dream is alive.
Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/
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