It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas (Reads) GIVEAWAY: Like a Winter Snow (+ guest post)

today’s book: like a winter snow by lindsay harrel

Christmas is only 30 days away according to Google (if we get to Dec 25th and we have days left over, blame Google, not me lol), BUT now ’tis the season when I start craving cozy Christmas reads. (Okay – I crave them all year round but now’s when I can get away with talking about them LOL) This year I’m continuing my annual blog series spotlighting new and recently-released Christmas reads, and I’m super excited! Christmas books make me happy!

So… snuggle in, grab your fave hot beverage and comfiest blanket, turn on some Christmas tunes and start your own bookish Christmas list! Oh… and did I mention there are GIVEAWAYS with EACH POST in this series??!! (Because authors are awesome!)

Today’s next featured book is a Christmas novella that is a standalone follow-up to a fan-favorite story + an inspirational message from the author on trusting when we can’t see ahead!

LIKE A WINTER SNOW
SERIES: Port Willis
GENRE: Contemporary Christmas Romance (clean)
RELEASE DATE: October 29, 2019
PAGES: 140

In this standalone holiday novella, return to the charming Cornish village readers fell in love with in The Secrets of Paper and Ink.

Women’s counselor Joy Beckman has always been a friend and helper to all. That’s why she’s given up everything to be with her parents as her mother suffers through Alzheimer’s. Joy may not have a thriving career or a love life at the moment, but she’s doing what she does best—taking care of others. And even though it’s difficult, she knows it’s where she is supposed to be.

But life throws a curveball when she has to leave her parents temporarily to travel to Cornwall, England, for the Christmas-time wedding of her best friend. While there, Joy helps Sophia tackle her last-minute to-do list, and in the process, finally meets a man who turns her head—and her heart. The only problem? He lives in snowy London, and her life is with her parents back in sunny Florida.

She tries to resist Oliver Lincoln’s charms, but it’s harder than it should be. With her heart torn in two, Joy is forced to choose between a life she knows she’s meant for and the one she didn’t see coming.

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Also available to read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

trusting when we cannot see

by Lindsay Harrel, author of Like a Winter Snow

I don’t know about you, but I am a planner with a capital P.

I like to know what my days, weeks, months, and year will look like on January 1 (okay, probably even before then if I’m honest).

But the older I get, the more I realize something: I am not in control.

Oh, I pretend to be, oftentimes to my own detriment. And yes, there’s something to be said for being organized—it helps me to be more efficient as an author and a mommy. But it’s when we hold too tightly to those plans that we have a problem.

In my Christmas story, Like a Winter Snow, my heroine (Joy Beckman) is struggling. She thinks she knows what God has for her life. In fact, she’s so sure that she has quit her job and moved across the country to help her dad care for her ailing elderly mother.

Her purpose in life is to help others, and she knows exactly how that’s supposed to play out.

Except, she has another obligation pop up—to play maid of honor in her best friend’s Christmas-time wedding in Cornwall, England.

So she heads over for a few weeks and things are going fine. Until she meets a man—a handsome Brit who turns her heart in ways it’s never been turned.

And she’s faced with a dilemma. Because Oliver Lincoln is soooo not part of the plan. Meeting him wasn’t on her radar. She knows in her head what she’s supposed to do with her life. But how is she supposed to deal with this unexpected relationship she didn’t see coming? How can she reconcile it with the plan she’s had for her life?

Man, I don’t know about you, but I can so relate to Joy (which is probably why I wrote her, LOL). How often do I settle into my plans and grip them with an iron fist?

How often do I allow those plans—and things going according to plan—to bring me joy? Identity? Solace?

It’s as if knowing what’s ahead makes me feel more in control, but when things happen that shouldn’t (according to our plan), then what?

I realize that I never really was in charge in the first place.

Why does that idea freak me out so much? Even though I’m a Christian, I have a hard time letting go and letting God.

In Like a Winter Snow, Joy can’t see a way forward. She honestly can’t see how things will work out. And then Oliver quotes a movie they both love: “None of us can see the way forward in the fog. We simply must take the next step and trust that the light will lead us where we need to go.”

Dear reader, that’s the truth that I have to constantly cling to. Even when I can’t see all the way down the path to the end, I have to trust that God’s light will illuminate my next step and that where he’s leading me is beautiful—even if it’s an ending I wouldn’t have planned for myself.

Your turn: What “surprise” has come your way that wasn’t part of your plans but ended up being a beautiful blessing?

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Lindsay Harrel is offering one of my readers an ebook copy of Like a Winter Snow (open internationally except where prohibited by law or logistics) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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What about you? What interests you most about Like a Winter Snow? What “surprise” has come your way that wasn’t part of your plans but ended up being a beautiful blessing?