-
Writer’s Corner: Shared Creation in Romance and Wishing you a Merry Christmas
Shared Creation: Building Something Together as Intimacy
Some love stories are told in words.
Others are told in what is made—
recipe by recipe,
hour by hour,
side by side.In sweet romance, shared creation is one of the most powerful paths to intimacy. When characters build something together, attraction grows naturally. Trust forms quietly. And love becomes something practiced long before it is declared.
Twenty-Six Pies, One Love Letter: 26 Reasons to Fall in Love
In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, Charles Rivera knows how to follow instructions. Recipes make sense. Ingredients behave. Results can be measured.
Love, however, does not.
Fresh out of the Army and rebuilding his life through ceramics, baking, and routine, Charles harbors quiet feelings for Daphne—the photographer who documents life with curiosity and care. When an offhand conversation sparks an idea—baking twenty-six pies in November, one for every letter of the alphabet—Charles sees a way forward.
Not through speeches.
Not through pressure.
But through creation.Each pie becomes a sentence in a love letter he isn’t yet brave enough to say aloud. As Daphne photographs the project, their collaboration deepens into late nights, shared laughter, and moments of recognition. Building something together creates emotional proximity. Being witnessed—without judgment—becomes intimacy.
What makes the romance unmistakable is choice. Charles doesn’t bake for attention. He bakes for her. Daphne doesn’t simply observe; she engages. Attraction grows because both of them show up—consistently, vulnerably, side by side.
Love Proven in Action: Persuasion
Jane Austen’s Persuasion is one of literature’s finest examples of love revealed through endurance and deliberate action.
Captain Wentworth loves Anne Elliot not through grand gestures, but through constancy. Time. Growth. Choice.
One line says everything:
“You pierce my soul.”
Though brief, the power of that declaration lies in what precedes it: years of restraint, self-improvement, and shared social space where love survives without entitlement.
26 Reasons to Fall in Love echoes this truth. Charles’s devotion is visible long before it is spoken. Love is demonstrated through follow-through—through finishing what he starts, and through allowing Daphne into the process.
In sweet romance, this kind of proof matters. Creation becomes a language of devotion.
Witnessing as Love: Julie & Julia
In Julie & Julia, a creative challenge transforms not only Julie’s confidence, but her marriage. What matters most isn’t the cooking—it’s the witnessing.
Someone sees the effort.
Someone encourages persistence.
Someone believes the project is worth finishing.That dynamic mirrors Charles and Daphne’s relationship. Collaboration doesn’t flatten attraction—it sharpens it. Love deepens because one person’s courage is held by another’s attention.
Shared creation invites romance because it removes performance. What’s left is sincerity.
Why Shared Creation Is So Romantic
Building something together creates:
- Proximity without pressure
- Vulnerability without exposure
- Commitment without control
Romance emerges not because characters talk about love—but because they practice it.
In sweet romance especially, this allows attraction to feel earned. Projects end. Feelings don’t. And when the making stops, characters must finally face what they’ve built between them.
Writing Prompts for Romance Authors
- Give your characters a creative challenge with a clear end date. What fears surface as the deadline approaches?
- Let one character document the other’s project. What do they notice first—and what do they fall in love with?
- Write a scene where the project nearly fails. How does love respond?
- Replace a declaration scene with a moment of quiet completion.
- Write the moment when the project ends—and feelings must be spoken at last.
Craft Tips: Using Shared Creation in Sweet Romance
- Make the project finite (deadlines create emotional stakes)
- Let attraction grow
- Use sensory detail to ground intimacy
- Allow silence while hands are busy
- Let love be revealed before it is named
If you liked this post, you might like 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, and it is FREE for e-book Kindle readers for a limited time between December 24-27. It is also available in paperback and hardback at stores like Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Amazon.
Merry Christmas!
-
Work as Craft: When Everyday Creation Becomes Love
Creation Over Competition: Sweet Warmth
In Sweet Warmth, Callie Morgan has already built her sanctuary.
Her chocolate shop—warm, amber-lit, filled with vintage mugs and the scent of memory—is more than a business. It’s an inheritance of love, a legacy passed down through her grandmother’s treasured hot chocolate recipe. It is stability, identity, and heart.
Then the blizzard comes.
Daniel, a pastry chef scouting locations for a future bakery, arrives not as a rival but as a man brought low by circumstance: stranded, disconnected, and unexpectedly in need. Over steaming mugs of chocolate and flickering candlelight, something gentle unfolds.
They could compete.
Instead, they listen.As Callie and Daniel talk shop—recipes, techniques, dreams—they discover that creativity doesn’t have to divide. Their ideas blend beautifully. Chocolate and pastry. Warmth and structure. Care and precision.
Their romance grows not out of grand gestures, but out of mutual respect for each other’s craft. Their work reveals who they are. And love follows naturally.
Food as Emotion and Memory: Like Water for Chocolate
Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate takes the idea even deeper: food as the direct language of emotion.
Every dish carries intention, longing, grief, and love. Recipes become ritual. Cooking becomes storytelling. What characters cannot say aloud is expressed through taste, scent, and shared meals.
In this novel, craft is inseparable from feeling. Food is not background—it is the conduit for connection. Love literally passes from one heart to another through creation.
In Sweet Warmth, we see the same quiet truth: what Callie pours into her chocolate, and what Daniel pours into his baking, is not just skill—it’s care. And care is the foundation of love.
The Film Pairing: Chocolat (2000)
If Sweet Warmth had a cinematic cousin, it would be Chocolat.
Set in a small, tradition-bound village, the film shows how food—and the act of making it—softens rigid hearts. Chocolate becomes invitation. A shop becomes a gathering place. Craft becomes community.
Like Callie, Chocolat’s heroine isn’t trying to change people. She simply offers warmth. And warmth, given consistently and sincerely, transforms lives.
Key connective thread:
Creation that welcomes others reshapes both the creator and the world around them.
Why Craft Works So Well in Romance
Craft-based romance works because it is embodied.
- Hands are busy
- Focus is shared
- Vulnerability arrives sideways
People reveal themselves through what they make—and how they make it. Respect grows. Trust follows. Love doesn’t feel forced because it isn’t rushed.
Craft allows romance to rise naturally out of competence, care, and collaboration.
Writing Prompts & Craft Notes for Romance Authors
Writing Prompts
- Two artisans meet in a moment of disruption (weather, equipment failure, supply shortage). What do they make together?
- Write a scene where competition almost happens—but cooperation changes everything.
- Let a family recipe or inherited skill create both comfort and conflict.
- Show attraction growing through professional admiration rather than flirtation.
- Write a first kiss that happens because a task is finished—not because words run out.
Craft Tips
- Let work reveal values
- Use sensory detail generously
- Show learning and adjustment
- Allow collaboration to replace rivalry
- Let the romance deepen as the craft deepens
-
Story and Art as Healing: How Making Together Rebuilds Hearts
Story And Art as Healing: How Making Together Rebuilds Hearts
There are wounds that don’t respond to advice.
They live in the body.
They surface in silence.
They resist being named.In stories like these, healing doesn’t arrive with speeches or solutions. It comes quietly—through rhythm, repetition, shared space, and the gentle permission to create again.
Stories, crafts, and community don’t erase pain.
They give pain a place to rest.
Purls of Love
In Purls of Love, a veteran mechanic begins knitting not because he dreams of becoming an artist—but because he needs something to steady his hands and quiet his thoughts.
Knitting becomes therapy.
Then routine.
Then refuge.With the help of a knitter who understands both patience and pain, he learns that creation doesn’t require perfection—only presence. Yarn moves through his fingers. Stories emerge between stitches. Slowly, what began as private healing grows outward.
Together, they imagine something more: a knitting group, a gathering place, a way to invite others into connection when loneliness has felt like the default.
Love in this story doesn’t rush in to “fix” anything.
It grows alongside healing.
It respects the pace of restoration.And that may be the most romantic thing of all.
Stories That Find Us—and Each Other:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society**
In The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, romance grows not in spite of hardship, but through the shared act of storytelling. Born from wartime scarcity and lingering grief, the literary society becomes a place where people are allowed to tell the truth—slowly, imperfectly, and together.
One line captures the heart of both the story and its romance:
“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”That quiet observation applies just as well to love.
Through letters, books, and long conversations shaped by mutual curiosity, characters begin to recognize one another—not through dramatic gestures, but through attentiveness. Stories open emotional doors that survival had closed. As grief is shared and understood, attraction becomes possible, grounded not in urgency, but in trust.
The romance in Guernsey unfolds through witness. To be read—to have one’s story welcomed and remembered—is a deeply romantic act. Love arrives not as rescue, but as companionship: a choice made after understanding has taken root.
For writers of sweet romance, Guernsey offers a powerful reminder: when characters are drawn together by shared meaning and story, love can feel both inevitable and earned.
Why Storytelling and Art Heals in Romance
Stories and art heal in romance because they slow us down.
They give:
- Structure without pressure
- Expression without exposure
- Community without demands
They allow characters—and readers—to sit with pain long enough for hope to arrive naturally.
When love enters these healing stories, it does so gently. Respectfully. Not as rescue, but as companionship.
Writing Prompts & Craft Notes for Romance Authors
Writing Prompts
- Write a scene where a character learns a craft or skill strictly for survival—and discovers connection instead.
- Create a shared group (book club, crafting circle, repair shop, café table) and let love grow on the edges.
- Let healing come through repetition rather than revelation.
- Write dialogue that happens while hands are busy making something.
- Let romance wait until healing feels rooted, not rushed
Craft Tips
- Allow silence to matter
- Show care through action
- Let community be character
- Honor slow pacing
- Treat healing as nonlinear
If you liked this post, you might like my short story, Purls of Love.
-
Art as Lifeblood: How Creativity Restores Hearts and Stories
Some stories don’t begin with romance.
They begin with stillness.A closed heart.
A guarded life.
A person who has learned to survive—but not quite to feel.Again and again, across literature and film, art enters stories not as decoration, but as lifeblood. Creativity awakens what grief, fear, routine, or loss has pushed aside. It restores wonder. It creates connection. And, often, it makes love possible.
That truth sits at the heart of so many beloved romantic stories—including one very dear to me.
When Art Opens the Door to Trust: Sculpted Chance
In my short romance Sculpted Chance, a businessman falls in love with a sculptor—but the romance itself isn’t the first transformation.
At the beginning of the story, he is emotionally restrained, cautious from past wounds, and structured by a world where control equals safety. Art unsettles him. It doesn’t demand; it invites. Through the sculptor’s work—and through watching creation happen—he begins to remember something long buried: the instinct to imagine, to feel, to create.
As he slowly discovers that he may be an artist himself after all, love becomes possible not because someone persuades him to trust—but because creativity teaches him how.
Art doesn’t fix him.
It reintroduces him to himself.That same pattern echoes through many of our most enduring romantic stories.
Beauty as Awakening: A Room with a View
E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View is, at its core, a story about beauty breaking through polite suffocation.
Lucy Honeychurch lives by expectation—social rules, proper matches, appropriate feeling. Art, music, travel, and the sensory richness of Italy awaken something in her that cannot be tucked neatly back into place. Beauty forces her to notice her own heart.
Art in Forster’s novel isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s atmospheric—architecture, landscapes, music, the quiet permission to feel deeply. And that permission changes everything.
Like the hero in Sculpted Chance, Lucy doesn’t gain courage through argument or logic. She gains it through experience. Through beauty. Through attention.
Art teaches her that a life without passion is not safety—it’s absence.
Creation as Connection: Ghost
Few films capture the intimacy of creation as memorably as Ghost (1990).
The pottery scene is iconic not merely because it is romantic, but because it shows art as shared vulnerability. Hands shaping clay together become a language beyond words. Trust is built not through promises, but through presence. Creativity becomes communion.
Even after loss, art remains the bridge—between love and grief, memory and hope, the seen and the unseen. Creation holds what cannot be held any other way.
In Ghost, art doesn’t erase pain. It gives pain somewhere to go.
Why Romance Needs Art
Romance thrives when characters are becoming more fully themselves.
Art—whether sculpting, music, architecture, cooking, writing, or simple acts of creativity—signals growth. It slows characters down. It invites attention. It allows transformation without speeches or declarations.
Art lets love arrive naturally, because the heart has already been opened.
That is why creative acts appear again and again in romantic storytelling. They are believable catalysts. They show change rather than announce it. And they remind us that love is not something we manufacture—it’s something we make room for.
An Invitation
Whether you are a reader, a writer, or simply someone who has forgotten the quiet joy of making something beautiful, stories remind us of this:
Art is not a luxury.
It is lifeblood.It restores hearts.
It opens stories.
And sometimes, it teaches us how to love again.
Writing Prompts & Craft Tips for Romance Authors
Writing Prompts
- Write a meet-cute where the first real connection happens through a shared creative moment—not conversation.
- Give a guarded character an artistic instinct they’ve denied. What awakens it?
- Write a scene where hands create something together—food, art, repairs. What emotions surface?
- Let art be the reason a character finally speaks the truth.
- What happens when a character’s creative work is misunderstood—and how does love respond?
Craft Tips
- Use art as action, not exposition
- Let creativity reveal vulnerability
- Tie creative acts to emotional turning points
- Avoid perfection—art works best when messy and human
If you liked this post, you might like Sculpted Chance or other stories in my Artisan Romance Series.
-
Writer’s Corner: Cozy Settings that Carry Emotional Weight
Practical craft notes for romance writers
Cozy settings don’t work because they’re charming. They work because they hold emotional meaning.
A kitchen, a coffee shop, or a living room becomes powerful in fiction when it reflects routine, values, and change. In sweet romance—especially holiday romance—settings often do the quiet work of deepening connection before the characters realize what’s happening.
Here are a few practical ways to make setting pull its emotional weight.
1. Let Cold Weather Narrow the Scene
Winter is useful because it reduces options.
Characters don’t wander as much. They linger. They make intentional choices about where to be and with whom. Rather than describing the cold itself, focus on its effect:
- Who invites someone inside?
- Who stays longer than planned?
- Who begins to associate warmth with a particular person?
Setting isn’t about weather—it’s about response.
2. Use Familiar Spaces to Reveal Character Values
Familiar places show us who people are when they aren’t trying.
A kitchen can reveal:
- comfort with hospitality (or discomfort with it)
- routines shaped by family or history
- whether a character fills silence or lets it stand
A coffee shop can function as:
- neutral ground
- a halfway step toward intimacy
- a ritual that slowly becomes personal
Choose settings your characters return to, then let repetition do the emotional work.
3. Describe Function, Not Furniture
Readers remember how a place feels to use, not how it’s decorated.
Instead of listing details, anchor descriptions to action:
- where coats are placed
- who pours the coffee
- how quickly someone moves or stills
Settings gain texture through movement, habit, and use.
4. Let Setting Change as the Relationship Changes
Settings should evolve alongside emotional stakes.
A place that once felt practical may later feel intimate—or vulnerable. A neutral location may become charged with expectation. These shifts don’t need to be announced. Let them show up subtly:
- a pause before entering
- a longer goodbye
- an awareness that the space feels different now
When setting reflects emotional growth, the romance feels grounded.
5. Use Writing Exercises to Deepen Awareness (Not Just Drafts)
You don’t need to publish every scene you write.
Try drafting:
- a scene where your POV character notices a shared space differently because someone else matters now
- a paragraph where the setting observes patterns or changes over time
These versions are tools. Their job is clarity, not perfection.
Final Craft Takeaway
Cozy settings work best when they’re treated as emotional containers—spaces where trust, presence, and affection can slowly take root.
In sweet romance, love often grows where characters feel safe enough to stay.
Optional Writing Prompts for Writers
Prompt 1: Character-Focused Setting Shift
Rewrite a quiet scene and ask:
What does my character notice now that they wouldn’t have noticed before this relationship mattered?Prompt 2: Place-as-Observer (Draft Only)
Write 200 words where the setting notices consistency, hesitation, or change over time.
Cut it later if needed—but keep what you learn.
If you’d like, this post pairs well with 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, a holiday sweet romance where kitchens, coffee shops, and shared traditions slowly become spaces of connection.
-
Recipes, Coffee, And Christmas Lights
When Setting Becomes a Character in Sweet Romance
How cozy places, winter traditions, and shared spaces deepen emotional connection
In sweet romance, intimacy often grows not through grand gestures, but through quiet moments—shared spaces where two people slowly learn each other. During the holiday season especially, setting does more than host the story. It becomes part of the emotional rhythm.
In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, the story unfolds from Thanksgiving to Christmas, where cold days push characters inward—toward warmth, tradition, and the simple act of showing up. A familiar kitchen becomes a touchstone. A coffee shop becomes neutral ground that slowly turns personal. These places don’t just sit in the background. They shape the connection.
Cold Weather and the Pull Toward Warmth
Winter naturally narrows the world.
Cold air pushes people indoors. It slows movement. It gives small comforts—warm mugs, familiar rooms, shared meals—greater emotional weight. In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, the seasonal chill heightens the significance of time spent inside together. It’s not about escaping the cold so much as choosing where to be warm.
For writers, cold weather can:
- Encourage proximity without rushing intimacy
- Emphasize comfort, stability, and routine
- Highlight contrast between emotional distance and physical closeness
Winter settings excel at making quiet moments meaningful.
Cozy Traditions as Emotional Bridges
Holidays bring traditions—and traditions reveal values.
In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, the kitchen isn’t just where food happens. It’s where relational rhythms live. Where a character’s habits, memories, and expectations quietly surface. As characters encounter one another’s traditions—what’s familiar, what’s new, what’s missing—they begin to understand each other more deeply.
Setting supports this by:
- Providing a shared space for traditions to unfold
- Allowing contrast between characters’ backgrounds
- Creating low-stakes moments that still carry emotional significance
A kitchen during the holidays isn’t neutral. It’s loaded—with memory, comfort, and meaning.
Details That Invite the Reader In
The difference between a functional setting and a memorable one lies in selective detail.
In both the kitchen and the coffee shop in 26 Reasons, the most important descriptions aren’t about décor. They’re about use. How the space feels when entered. How long someone stays. Who has been invited in—and who hasn’t.
Effective setting details:
- Reflect what the POV character values or notices
- Reinforce emotional tone (comfort, hesitation, familiarity)
- Stay grounded in action rather than static description
Readers don’t just want to see a place. They want to feel welcome—or uncertain—inside it.
When Place Reflects Character
Setting becomes character-like when it aligns with who the characters are becoming.
A kitchen that starts as merely functional can slowly feel like home. A coffee shop that once felt impersonal can become charged with expectation. These shifts mirror emotional change.
Ask:
- What places feel safe to this character—and why?
- Which settings expose their habits, fears, or hopes?
- How does a familiar place change once someone else matters?
When setting evolves alongside the relationship, readers feel that growth instinctively.
Writing Prompts to Try
1. Character-Noticing-Place Prompt
Write a short scene set in a familiar space (a kitchen, café, or living room).
Focus on what your POV character notices because of the other person present.
What suddenly matters now that it didn’t before?2. Place-as-Observer Prompt (Optional Twist)
Write a paragraph from the perspective of the place itself—not narrating, but observing.
What patterns does it notice as the characters return?
Where does the space “hold” tension or warmth?You don’t need to use this version in the final draft—the goal is to deepen emotional awareness.
Final Thought
In sweet romance, love often grows in ordinary places made extraordinary by care, presence, and time. During winter especially, settings become containers for warmth—showing readers that love doesn’t need spectacle.
Sometimes, it just needs coffee, a special recipe, and Christmas lights.
If you liked these thoughts on writing romance, you might like my novella 26 Reasons to Fall in Love.
Find out more on the 26 Reasons to Fall in Love page here at my website.
Find 26 Reasons to Fall in Love on Bookfunnel for a universal link to online stores.
-
Hardback editions are here for 26 Reasons to Fall in Love!
I’m so excited to share that it’s now possible to get 26 Reasons to Fall in Love in paperback, ebook, and hardback! And it’s the perfect size for a stocking stuffer!
I love this book and I loved writing it, so I hope readers will love it, too!
I unboxed it today, and that was a special treat. See the video on my Instagram.
On a sad note, it has come to my attention that my link wasn’t working for the for the first few days of the Bookfunnel I joined for Christmas in KU.
I fixed it today! Try the link direct HERE.
And, it will be free for all readers December 23-27th, just for Christmas.
Want to know more?
He can follow any recipe—but love doesn’t come with instructions.
Twenty-six pies. Two months. One chance to tell her how he feels—without saying a word.
After two years in the Army and a lifetime of playing it safe, Charles Rivera is finally rebuilding his world—one recipe at a time. His quiet college life revolves around ceramics, his tiny kitchen, and a Thursday night book club where the highlight isn’t the literature…it’s Daphne, the Navy veteran with a crooked smile and a camera that never leaves her side.
When a conversation sparks a wild idea—bake twenty-six pies in November and December, one for every letter of the alphabet—Charles dives in headfirst. What starts as a creative challenge soon becomes something deeper: a way to speak through flour, butter, and sugar the words he can’t quite say out loud.
But as Daphne begins documenting his project for her photography portfolio, their collaboration turns into late-night laughter, quiet confessions, and a friendship that feels like something more.
And when the pies run out, Charles will have to decide if he’s brave enough to take the biggest risk of all—the one that doesn’t come with a recipe.A tender, slow-burn romance about art, courage, and finding home in the people who see you.
Perfect for readers who love baking challenges, creative passion projects, found family, and love that rises slowly—but beautifully.Get 26 Reasons to Fall in Love Today!
-
Christmas Romance in Kindle Unlimited!
Christmas Romance in Kindle Unlimited
From December 1st through December 31st, find dozens of holiday themed romances for all heat levels of romance readers through this promotion! Over 50 authors are involved in the promotion, so there are books for all romance readers.
Curl up by a fire with a sweet or hot cup of cocoa and a fun read!
Within this promotion, you’ll find my sweet holiday-themed romance 26 Reasons: A Sweet Meet-Cute Novella (Artisan Romance Sweet Meet-Cute Stories).
26 Reasons: A Sweet Meet-Cute Novella
He can follow any recipe—but love doesn’t come with instructions.
Twenty-six pies. One month. One chance to tell her how he feels—without saying a word.
After two years in the Army and a lifetime of playing it safe, Charles Rivera is finally rebuilding his world—one recipe at a time. His quiet college life revolves around ceramics, his tiny kitchen, and a Thursday night book club where the highlight isn’t the literature…it’s Daphne, the Navy veteran with a crooked smile and a camera that never leaves her side.
When a conversation sparks a wild idea—bake twenty-six pies in November, one for every letter of the alphabet—Charles dives in headfirst. What starts as a creative challenge soon becomes something deeper: a way to speak through flour, butter, and sugar the words he can’t quite say out loud.
But as Daphne begins documenting his project for her photography portfolio, their collaboration turns into late-night laughter, quiet confessions, and a friendship that feels like something more.
And when the pies run out, Charles will have to decide if he’s brave enough to take the biggest risk of all—the one that doesn’t come with a recipe.A tender, slow-burn romance about art, courage, and finding home in the people who see you.
Perfect for readers who love baking challenges, creative passion projects, found family, and love that rises slowly—but beautifully.Find 26 Reasons: A Sweet Meet-Cute Novella within the Christmas Romance on KU promotion!
-
Promotions For This Week
For this week, I have three titles on offer!
All three of these are for Kindle readers, and two are with a special promotion with several authors, which is really cool!
First up, on my own, I have Gallery Mix-Up set for FREE on Kindle for a limited time, November 23-27th!
Click through the link (it will not say FREE, but if you click through the Universal Link (good for readers around the world), it will take you to Amazon which has the title listed FREE for those days.
Fashionably Late and On Time for Love
Maya arrives at the gallery opening perfectly dressed and fashionably late, only to discover she’s twenty-four hours early. What should have been an embarrassing mistake becomes something magical when she meets Julian—the artist himself—surrounded by half-installed sculptures and the intimate chaos of creation in progress.
Get Gallery Mix-Up for FREE here until November 27th!
Next up, I am in part of the Christmas Romance in KU Sales Promotion With Over 90 Books!
NOTE: These books are not free, but are either inexpensive or discounted.
You can find two of my titles there: Sweet Warmth and 26 Reasons!
When a blizzard brings two food lovers together, one magical night changes everything…
Callie Morgan has poured her heart into Sweet Warmth, her cozy chocolate shop on Mapleton’s charming Main Street. She’s built the perfect sanctuary—warm amber walls, vintage mugs, and the most incredible hot chocolate recipe passed down from her grandmother. But on the night of the season’s first blizzard, her peaceful world is about to be sweetly disrupted.
Daniel is a talented pastry chef and baker, driving through town to scout locations for his new bakery when the storm hits with unexpected fury. Stranded with a dead car and no phone, he stumbles into Sweet Warmth seeking shelter—and finds something he wasn’t looking for.
Twenty-six pies. One month. One chance to tell her how he feels—without saying a word.
After two years in the Army and a lifetime of playing it safe, Charles Rivera is finally rebuilding his world—one recipe at a time. His quiet college life revolves around ceramics, his tiny kitchen, and a Thursday night book club where the highlight isn’t the literature…it’s Daphne, the Navy veteran with a crooked smile and a camera that never leaves her side.
Get these Two Books in the Christmas in KU Promotion through December 31st!
-
Cocoa Kisses: 10 Reasons We Love Holiday Romance
From twinkle-light glow to second-chance magic—here’s why we keep coming back.
Confession: I measure winter by how many holiday romances I can squeeze in. Here are 10 reasons they’re pure seasonal joy:1) Atmosphere you can taste.
Snowy streets, pine and cinnamon, candles in the window—holiday romances are sensory feasts that wrap you in instant cozy.
2) Hope on the calendar.
This season is culturally coded for miracles and fresh starts. Stories lean into healing, forgiveness, and the belief that love can still arrive.3) Built-in community.
Town festivals, cookie exchanges, choir rehearsals—holiday plots naturally gather people, creating organic meet-cutes and meddling matchmakers.
4) Second chances that make sense.
End-of-year reflection nudges characters to call the one that got away, mend family rifts, or say the truth they’ve avoided.5) Found family feels.
When home is complicated, holiday stories often build a chosen-family table—friends, neighbors, co-workers—where love can land safely.6) Tradition + surprise.
We come for the tree farm, parade, or gingerbread contest…and stay to see how this couple turns a familiar tradition into something brand new.7) Soft stakes, real hearts.
The conflict won’t end the world, but it will challenge courage: setting boundaries, risking vulnerability, choosing a future together.8) Wholesome serotonin.
From snow-day shenanigans to one blanket on the hayride, these stories deliver clean comfort without skimping on chemistry.
9) Timers that propel the plot.
Deadlines (the big party! the flight leaves tomorrow!) create momentum—perfect for page-turning in a busy season.10) A guaranteed glow.
Happy endings pair beautifully with twinkle lights. You close the book feeling lighter—and a little braver about love.If that sounds like your kind of cozy, you’ll love my newest release:
👉 26 Reasons to Fall In LoveI’m also taking part in the Clean Romance Xmas Mega End of Year Giveaway. You can find two of my short story e-books for free there.
Ways to spread the cheer (free & fast):
- Tap a quick ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating when you finish
- Share the link with a friend who loves seasonal reads
- Leave one sentence about your favorite moment (it truly helps!)
What’s your favorite holiday-romance trope—snowed in, small-town festival, or rivals at the cookie bake-off? Hit reply and tell me—I might write it next. 😉
Warm cocoa wishes,
Rene Rose Hawthorne
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Rene (Rose) Hawthorne 