This post is part of Long and Short Reviews’ Winter Blogfest.
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Sugar Cookies by Pamela Woods-Jackson
It’s a happy coincidence that I’m able to write a Christmas-themed blog to help promote my just-released Christmas-themed novella, SUGAR COOKIES FOR BOXING DAY. I’ve written six full-length novels but had never tackled a novella, which was in answer to The Wild Rose Press’s call for Christmas stories centered on cookies. I accepted the challenge, and this is the result. My heroine, widow Merry Halliday, is facing a lonely holiday. Her sixtieth birthday is December 26 (Boxing Day in Canada and England), but her best friend is leaving town for the holiday, and worse yet, her daughter is off on a pre-honeymoon trip to Hawaii with fiancé Elijah. But when she meets Elijah’s father, professional and romantic sparks fly.
Then came the cookie part. I don’t really bake, so I wracked my brain for a recipe. When I was a child, my grandmother used to spend weeks baking cookies ahead of the holidays, and she always baked up a special batch of sugar cookies for each grandchild. Light-bulb moment! I decided to track down her recipe and use it as the centerpiece of the story. However, that proved to be a bigger challenge than I’d expected, since no one in my family seemed to have a copy of it. Finally, I asked my 92-year-old mother if she had it, and she did! She copied it, sent it to me, I was able to finish my novella, AND include the recipe at the end of the story. Interesting aside: Last year my daughter-in-law used the cookie recipe and baked up a sweet memory for the family.
A word about the black kitty on the cover. Although in the book her name is Spookie, she is based on my beloved 17-year-old rescue Molly, who passed away last summer. Seeing her captured on the cover of my novella is bitter-sweet.
Thanks for letting me be a part of this blog. My novella would make a perfect holiday gift!
Merry Halliday is staring down the barrel of her sixtieth birthday on December twenty-sixth, a daunting milestone for a widow of three years. Merry has always loved Christmas, and every year lovingly bakes her grandmother’s special sugar cookies for friends and family. But then she learns that the school where she teaches has insurmountable financial problems, and if that’s not bad enough, Merry finds out her adult daughter Robin is off to Hawaii with fiancé Elijah. It’s looking like a lonely Christmas and birthday, and worse yet, her career is now in jeopardy.
Merry’s friend and fellow teacher Donna convinces her to go to a sports bar for an end-of-semester get together with colleagues. To Merry’s surprise, a handsome man in his late fifties flirts with her. The next day at the school faculty meeting, Merry is stunned to realize that bar flirt Grady Williams represents the charter school poised to take over her high school. As if that isn’t shock enough, Merry soon finds out that Grady is Elijah’s father.
Faced with spending Christmas alone with her cat Spookie, Merry accepts an out-of-the-blue invitation to spend Christmas with Grady and his friends at a Bed and Breakfast in Indianapolis. With her birthday just two days away, Merry wonders what other surprises are in store. She’s about to find out!
Pamela Woods-Jackson is the author of seven novels: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE PSYCHIC; CERTAINLY SENSIBLE; GENIUS SUMMER; EMMA WITH SOMETHING EXTRA; TEENAGE PSYCHIC ON CAMPUS; SOLE MATES; SUGAR COOKIES FOR BOXING DAY. She lives in Noblesville, Indiana with her rescue cat Molly.
Buy the book at Amazon.
Romeo and Juliet didn’t really die. Well, their earthly bodies were entombed after their fifteenth century suicides, forcing their spirits to watch helplessly from The Other Side as their families renewed their centuries-old feud.
