One December Morning By Emma Davies
One chance meeting. Two strangers. And a sprinkling of Christmas magic…
Fifty-five-year-old Peg has been lonely for as long as she can remember. As she battles through traffic while the snow softly falls around her, the best she can hope for is to get home for Christmas safely, and to spend it wrapped in a blanket by a roaring open fire in her tumbledown cottage in the Cotswolds. Little does she know that everything is about to change…
Because Henry is also stuck on the road, and when their cars come to a complete standstill, he and Peg strike up a conversation over a homemade mince pie and a flask of hot tea. Towering over Peg, his navy waffle-knit jumper charmingly threadbare at the elbows, he chats effortlessly. With his tortoiseshell glasses pushed back into his mass of curly dark hair, Henry makes Peg laugh, and the two click. As something shifts, Peg realises that it’s been a long time since she smiled like this.
Peg discovers that Henry is single too, but he’s off to grit his teeth through the forced jollity of another family Christmas with his insufferably perfect daughter-in-law in the next village. Before they get a chance to exchange numbers, the traffic starts to move and Peg and Henry are wrenched apart…
She doesn’t expect to see him again. But then, days later, there’s a knock on Peg’s door: Henry needs her help. In an instant, she knows this will be a Christmas she’ll never forget, in ways she could never have imagined. Can she let herself get involved and risk being vulnerable, or will she shy away?
Peg doesn’t open her heart to anyone. But can the magic of Christmas persuade her to give it to someone special…?
A Scottish Christmas Hideaway By Ellie Henderson
One snowy village. Two guarded hearts. A Christmas they’ll never forget.
After a year of burying her heartbreak in endless work, Jessica Stewart returns to her childhood home in the Scottish village of Rowan Bay. She hopes the Christmas lights and familiar faces will help her rediscover the woman she used to be.
She doesn’t expect Reuben Campbell.
Once her brother’s infuriating best friend — the boy who teased her endlessly — Reuben is now a ruggedly handsome architect with an easy charm. And he’s suddenly everywhere Jessica turns.
As the village prepares for Christmas, Jessica and Reuben find themselves sharing frost-bitten walks, fairy-lit evenings and gingerbread house disasters. The spark between them is impossible to ignore and Reuben’s steady presence begins to melt the walls Jessica has spent so long building.
But Jessica came home to escape complications — and Reuben, for all his warmth, is hiding heartbreak and secrets of his own.
My Sanctuary 