Winter Blogfest: Lucy Felthouse

This post is part of Long and Short Reviews’ Winter Blogfest. Leave a comment for a chance to win a backlist ebook of the winner’s choice.

Weaving Reality into Fiction—At Christmas by Lucy Felthouse

A couple of years ago, I found out about this really awesome local initiative that was taking place. A café in my nearest town was putting on a meal on Christmas Day for those who would be alone, or for whatever reason didn’t have the funds/resources to cook their own meal. They were raising funds to pay for it, and asking for volunteers to help out on the day. I wasn’t in a position to volunteer, unfortunately, but kept it in the back of my mind for the following year. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, as the café has since closed—a real loss to the community.

However, the idea and the spirit behind it remained bubbling away in the back of my mind and I decided to make it the jumping off point for my latest Christmas book, When Christmas is Cancelled. I took the charity meal idea and the café itself and weaved them into my story. It made for a very heartwarming plot, and the ideal place for my lead characters to bump into each other a decade after a painful breakup. I had lots of fun telling their angsty, twisty story against the wholesome backdrop of people volunteering their time to help others, with Christmas cheer, food, songs and decorations everywhere.

My local town isn’t actually named in the book, but I did borrow heavily from it. The lovely Christmas trees and decorations that are up at this time of year, the fantastic independent shops, the sense of community and generosity. All this reality was woven into fiction, and then I went heavy on the making stuff up at a pivotal moment in the book when I added some snowfall—which we rarely get in this neck of the woods, for some reason (and when we do, it’s way more inconvenient than fun).

I really enjoyed picking and choosing my favourite bits of reality and putting them into this story—although it was weird to be writing a Christmas book during the summer! Thankfully, by the time the editing phase came along, we were in the grips of a chilly autumn and even had some early snow, so it was easier for me to add in some more of those wintery details as I polished up the book to a gleaming shine, ready for readers to (hopefully) enjoy. The result is a book that (and early reviews attest to this) is heartwarming, scorching, and also tugs on the heartstrings. So if you like second chance romance with an age gap and a spot of BDSM, then do check out When Christmas is Cancelled. It’s available from to buy from Amazon in eBook and paperback formats, and is in Kindle Unlimited for one term only, so if you’re a subscriber, add it to your shelf ASAP.

Have a wonderful holiday season, and happy reading!
Lucy x

When Rosie does a good deed on Christmas Day, she’s not expecting to come face to face with her very own ghost of Christmas past.

Rosie Kilbride’s festive plans are derailed when her mother calls on Christmas Eve to postpone their family get together due to illness. Left with a surplus of food and no one to eat it with, Rosie contacts Ingrid, a local café owner, to find out if she still needs volunteers for the charity Christmas meal she’s organising. Ingrid jumps at the chance, and on Christmas morning Rosie heads out, anticipating a busy but pleasant day doing something nice for others, followed by a meal of leftovers with her fellow volunteers.

Unfortunately, on being introduced to the café’s kitchen staff, she discovers the head chef is none other than Luke Adams, the man who broke her heart into a million tiny pieces ten years ago. And she’s got to work with him. Despite her inner turmoil, there’s no way she’ll let Ingrid and the diners down, so she’s determined to grin and bear it. It’s just a few hours, after all.

When the day is almost done, tiredness and hunger kick in, and emotions start to run high. Can Rosie get away unscathed, or will she be forced to deal with Luke and all the feelings his presence has dredged up?

When Christmas is Cancelled is a standalone M/F steamy contemporary romance with second chance, age gap and BDSM themes.

Lucy Felthouse is the award-winning author of erotic romance novels Stately Pleasures (named in the top 5 of Cliterati.co.uk’s 100 Modern Erotic Classics That You’ve Never Heard Of), Eyes Wide Open (winner of the Love Romances Café’s Best Ménage Book 2015 award), The Persecution of the Wolves, Hiding in Plain Sight, Curve Appeal, Not That Kind of Witch and The Heiress’s Harem and The Dreadnoughts series. Including novels, short stories and novellas, she has over 175 publications to her name. Find out more about her and her writing at http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/linktree

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