A Fresh Start for Christmas

by Kimberly Grist

  He is just shy of proposing when a family tragedy forces him to open his home to his grieving sister and his niece. How could he bring a new wife home to this? Lois is heartbroken because Daniel is ignoring her. Can she go against the 19th-century rules of how a woman should behave and have the courage to tell Daniel how she feels?

  Combining history, humor, and romance with an emphasis on faith, friends, and good clean fun, fans of historical romance set in the late 19th-century will enjoy Lois’s Risk a delightful tale of courage and reminds us how God uses adversity to strengthen us and draw us closer to Him.

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  Maggie’s Strength

  Twenty-year-old Maggie Montgomery is a petite young woman ahead of her time. She's had a wonderful childhood and enjoyed spending time with her father and five brothers and is happiest working in the smithy with them. A competent cook and housekeeper, as a favor to the local doctor, she moves in to assist his wife who is struggling to recuperate from a bout of pneumonia.

  A tomboy at heart, she ignores her mother's pleas to dress more appropriately, until the son returns. A recent graduate of medical school, although handsome, the young doctor is stoic and obviously put out that his father has hired her to help his mother recuperate. Sparks fly and suddenly for the first time Maggie is concerned more about how she is perceived by others, especially the young doctor. The question is, why? Can they get past their first impressions?

  Maggie draws on unrelenting strength where iron sharpens iron—forging an unexpected result of the romantic kind.

  ~o0o~

  Carol’s Choice

  After the deaths of her mother and stepfather, twenty-year-old Carol Stone finds herself in reduced circumstances with two younger siblings to care for. The suggested marriage of convenience is out of the question, so she stalls for time. When Carol learns she is the sole heir of a small home in Carrie Town, a newly expanded railroad village, she throws caution to the Texas wind and packs her bags.

  Though warned of the extreme change in lifestyle, she's shocked at the smallness of the Sunday House. And why didn't she think to ask about indoor plumbing?

  Leaving her lifestyle of shopping, lavish parties and holiday endeavors for a simpler life is a temporary solution until she can make a match of her own design. Carol struggles to let go of the past, embrace the present, and hope for a better future. What she doesn’t bargain for is the handsome livery-stable owner, who understands the true meaning of family and Christmas. Will love conquer lavish?

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  Garnet's Gift

  Twenty-two-year-old Garnet Adams longs to marry and have a houseful of children. Forced to support her widowed mother, she embraces her role as a teacher, although the Carrie Town board of education's rules for female teachers leave no opportunity for a social life. She contents herself playing the violin at church.

  Tall, bearded, and rough around the edges, Deputy Noah Scott would rather hunt than socialize. Garnet thinks he’s a rude, insensitive drifter, and Noah's sure the last person he'd want to court is a schoolmarm--especially with her unladylike sneeze. As the needs of her students bring them together, opposites seem to attract until a certain Christmas present derails their future.

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  A Promised Land

  Twenty-year-old Meriwether Walker enjoys the challenge of teaching her varied group of students in the one-room schoolhouse. What she doesn't like is the nomadic lifestyle that comes with it as she rotates boarding with families in the community on a month to month basis. Meriwether longs for a home of her own, but since single female teachers have to follow so many rules, she doesn't see any end to her plight--until the letter from the attorney handling her uncle's estate arrives.

  When Meriwether discovers her uncle left her his ranch, the one she loved to visit when she was a child, she quit her job and moved without hesitation to Trickling Springs, Texas, to take over her property. But when she arrives, deed in hand, she discovers her decision has put her at odds with Jake Harrison, the man who rents property from her uncle and seeks to buy the land and water rights for his cattle. They butt heads, tempers flare, but Meriwether stands her ground. Yet she can't deny the romantic sparks that fly, and she can tell it's mutual. When he comes courting, can she trust Jake Harrison, or is his real attraction the property and the water rights he needs, and she has inherited?

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I offer my appreciation to Black Widow Books for the cover design for my novel.

  DISCLAIMER

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  All the characters described in this story are fictional. They are not based on any real persons, past or present. Any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and unintended.

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  Formatting by Fury Cover Design

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