One unexpected pregnancy, two determined would-be fiancés, and a passel of meddling small-town residents clash to determine a schoolteacher’s future.

Blake: I can’t forget the soft, feminine schoolteacher I met one passion-filled night in Las Vegas. But when I track her down six weeks later, I discover she’s pregnant with my baby! Though I’m stunned by the idea of a ready-made family, I know my responsibility and ask her to marry me.

Lana: When Blake nobly offers matrimony, I have to turn him down. He’s all about the duty, and I’d rather be a single mother than endure a loveless marriage. Unfortunately, the town insists I have to marry marry someone—preferablylocal Ned—or I’ll lose my job.

London film critic Hazel Nightingale has lost her job and is desperately trying to get her ex out of her system. But as she returns to her childhood home in the Lincolnshire fens to take care of her ailing grandparent, she had not expected a new romance to be written in her stars.

In nearby Woodhall Spa, Hollywood is in town shooting a war film, and with time on her hands, Hazel signs up to be a background extra. Heading the cast is a movie star heartthrob, a native of the more well-known New York, and serendipity sees these two New Yorkers drawn together again and again. Somehow, it seems he’s taken a shine to her. Could this be the start of a fairytale romance going on here? They don’t happen in this New York, do they?

She wears a cheerful mask. He’s floundering in his new financial freedom. Thrown together under one roof, will they fail big or totally win at love?

Sydney, Australia. Tessa Finch hides her anxiety behind a pretty smile. Relocating from England to ghostwrite a famous artist’s biography, the gap-toothed expat finds that the escape she hoped for hasn’t worked. So when her employer’s seriously handsome son suddenly moves in, she feels her stress skyrocket despite the draw of his grumpy sarcasm.

Dylan Huxley is filthy rich and utterly lost. Back in his childhood home to regroup after selling his start-up for a staggering profit, the tech genius discovers a charming stranger already in residence. But when he suspects she’s in trouble, the misanthropic mogul tries to nudge her toward professional help by proposing a friendly bet.

The not-so-proud owner of a waitressing career and a cheating boyfriend, cosmopolitan Mira James jumps at the chance for a fresh start in rural Battle Lake. When she immediately lands a librarian job and meets a sexy small-town hunk, she wonders if she’s finally made a good life decision.

Until that hunk turns up dead between the library’s reference stacks.

Anxious to learn more about the man who briefly stole her heart, Mira delves headfirst into the mysteries of Battle Lake. The first thing she discovers is that she’d chosen the wrong guy all along. The second? That unknown dangers are concealed under the polite exterior of this quirky town, and revenge is a tator tot hotdish best served cold.

She wants his story. He wants his secrecy. Too bad he can’t stay away from her.

Molly

Blogging about bad dates used to be fun, but a girl can only take so much foolishness. So I broke up with my job.

Okay, full disclosure, I was fired. It’s a long, sordid tale, involving my sourdough starter—RIP, Fred!—and my ex-boss’s serious lack of humor.

Newly funemployed and in need of a break, I go to Asheville to dogsit for my sister…and stumble onto a scoop big enough to put my fake-dating days behind me forever.

Lana Davis hates Christmas because it brings to mind the loss of her husband. But when an old, eccentric woman at the nursing home gives her a present as well as advice, her life takes a mysterious turn.

With one shake of a snowglobe, magic happens as the Nutcracker Christmas Soldier inside suddenly comes to life. But can Lana listen to the old woman’s advice about letting go of the past and living in the now? And will her Christmas soldier bring her the happiness she’s had locked away inside herself, or will her own fears and guilt keep her living in the past?

A woman trapped in her past and a soldier released from his, are brought together one Christmas by hope – or is it magic?