It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Reads) GIVEAWAY: Home for Christmas (+ guest post)

today’s book: Home for Christmas

Happy Monday once more! Even though Christmas is over, I still think it counts until New Year’s Day, so I am continuing our annual blog series spotlighting (over 60 this year) new and recently-released Christmas reads! So… snuggle in, grab your fave hot beverage and comfiest blanket, turn on some Christmas tunes if you aren’t sick of them yet and continue your 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 collection of inspirational romances featuring veterans & active duty servicemen, and author Cathe Swanson shares about her story in the collection!

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
AUTHORS: Chautona Havig, Toni Shiloh, Cathe Swanson & Jaycee Weaver
SERIES: Christmas Lights Collection #6
GENRE: Inspirational Romance collection
PUBLISHER: Havilah Press Publications 
RELEASE DATE: October 26, 2021
PAGES: 615

★ The Christmas Lights Collection is back, and this year’s collection is better than ever! ★

Full of love, joy, and hope, this year’s collection offers the celebration of freedom, sacrifice, and the greatest Gift ever given.

These novellas feature two veterans and two active servicemen and their stories.

♥ The Stars of New Cheltenham by Chautona Havig

Christmas in Rockland—battleground or romantic?

Avalon is ticked—seriously livid.  Who does this Marine recruiter think he is? Her brother is a boy and is not ready to be sacrificed on the altar of “service to your country.”  No. Thank you. When trying to talk sense into Max doesn’t work, she does the only think she can think of. Take it to the top.

Gareth Hudson has an exemplary record as a Marine recruiter and knows a good man when he sees one.  So when Maxton McCollum starts asking questions in a diner one afternoon, it was obvious. This was a match made in military heaven.  One young man anxious to serve his country.  One country ready to train him to be the best version of himself.

So when Avalon walks into Gareth’s recruiting office, all the wrong kinds of fireworks explode. In a peacekeeping move unlike him, Gareth asks for four Saturdays to change her mind. If he can’t, he’ll suggest that Max wait six months before signing up.

Romance wasn’t part of the bargain, and with their age difference, Gareth knows it still shouldn’t be, but how do you resist the pull of love at Christmas?

♥ Most Wonderful Time  by Toni Shiloh

Gabe Lewis loves Christmas, just not as much as his eccentric mother who gave him and his siblings Christmas names. When he discovers that his new co-worker Shanée Mitchell wants nothing to do with the season, he makes it his mission to show her the true meaning. But he never expected feelings to develop for the Air Force veteran. Can he take a chance that she feels the same way or miss the best gift of all?

♥ The Road Home by Cathe Swanson

Tally has tried to leave her military history far in the past, but she’s not ready to go back to her former life, either. Can an old army buddy help her find a new road home?

♥ Now and Forever Christmas by Jaycee Weaver

Romance ruined their friendship. Could this be the Christmas they repair it?

CJ Sinclair never imagined trading her chef’s toque for the domestic life but helping out her pregnant sister lets her regroup after a bad case of burnout. Though, if she’d known it meant spending time with her first ex, or that they’d be almost as awkward as in high school, CJ might’ve fled to Mexico instead.

The past eight years as a professional musician for the US Army prepared Tobin McGhee for his new job as high school band teacher. They didn’t prepare him for how he’d feel seeing CJ again. This time, though, he won’t make the same mistakes.

Can they make holiday music together and rekindle the friendship they once had, or will romance ruin everything again?

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Also available to read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

by Cathe Swanson, author of “The Road Home” in Home For Christmas collection

Home for Christmas is the 6^th annual Christmas Lights Collection, and we think it gets better every year!

I’ve enjoyed teaming up with Chautona Havig, Toni Shiloh, and Jaycee Weaver in these Christmas collections. We’ve been talking about doing a themed collection for years, and we all have ties to the military, so this year, we wrote Christmas books with military (active duty and veteran) characters. As always, the books are contemporary Christian romances. Each is part of the authors’ series, but they are standalone stories that can be enjoyed individually.

My contribution to this year’s collection is The Road Home. My heroine, Tally Zemmer, was introduced in Snow Angels, the first book in my Hope Again series (published in the very first Christmas Lights Collection in 2016!)

The Hope Again books are set at the Unity Plenkiss Community Center in Chicago, a Christian ministry and daytime homeless shelter. It’s populated by characters inspired by my years of working with elderly and disadvantaged people. I wanted to write a book emphasizing the importance of honoring others regardless of their circumstances and helping them live with dignity.

As a military wife and mother, I was familiar with the plight of our homeless and troubled veterans, and I was particularly horrified by the number of female homeless vets. So, in addition to all my other eccentric characters, Tally was created. Tally is a homeless veteran. She’s an important character in most of the Hope Again books, and after four more books and several years later, it’s time for Tally to have her own happily-ever-after.

She was stubborn, prickly, and not very sociable, so I was a little surprised when she wanted her own POV in each of the Hope Again Christmas books. Throughout the series, with the support of good friends and a growing faith, she built a new life for herself. Her happily-ever-after was a fitting end for the Hope Again series.

Christopher Wright, the hero of the book, is a veteran, too, with scars of his own. It took years for him to track down Tally, but she made him a promise back in Afghanistan, and he’s going to hold her to it. Christopher’s one of my favorite characters. He has a mission and a career field I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a book hero before.

The Road Home is a Christmas book because Christmas is a time of anticipation, hope, and miracles. The theme of the Hope Again series is that of restoration after loss or trauma. God heals, and He restores the years the locust has eaten – abundantly.

“The threshing floors shall be full of grain;

    the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will restore to you the years

    that the swarming locust has eaten,

the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,

    my great army, which I sent among you.

“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,

    and praise the name of the Lord your God,

    who has dealt wondrously with you.

And my people shall never again be put to shame.

(Joel 2: 24-26)

I think you’ll enjoy all of the Home for Christmas books!

Cathe Swanson is offering a $5 Amazon gift card to one of my readers! (Void 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 makes you want to read the Home for Christmas collection by these four great authors, including Cathe Swanson & “The Road Home”?