Dear Readers,

Can it really be November? Can it be true that another Holiday season is underway? Wow. Wonderful. I can't wait to start baking... and reading. I love curling up under a warm blanket with a good book, don't you? Well, bonus, 'cause I have a brand new one out today. Catch the excerpt of "A Texan Under the Mistletoe," my novella featured in the anthology Christmas, Texas Style (with Tina Leonard and Linda Warren) on my site. Order yours with this handy link. And ring in the holiday season with either of my fun and easy holiday crafts: bake recipes from the story, or break out your scissors and glue and make this fun ornament (a pop-up window will appear and a pdf will download) for your tree (follow the link to a downloadable pdf complete with full-sized art and easy instructions).

It just doesn't seem that long ago that I was writing "A Texan Under the Mistletoe." The honest to goodness fact is that I wrote this story during the 2004 Christmas season, within sight of my family's wonderful, decoration-smothered tree. New Orleans brought jazz and beignets to mind, not devastation.

From the very first, "A Texan Under the Mistletoe" was a story about rebirth. I wanted the long-dead romance of Lori Beth Whittaker and Jackson Hooper to rise like a phoenix as their town rebuilt from some sort of crisis. It needed to be a weather-related crisis, because a ghost or a serial killer would have put too much more into the plot and let's face it -- I only had about 60 pages to work with. A drought was too drawn out an event for my plot purposes and so I innocently invented a couple of ravaging storms to set my story against. Never in a million plot thoughts did I imagine that in between my finishing the story and the publication date Katrina and Rita would descend to make my story eerily close to reality.

And so, while this novella celebrates love and community and all those values and hopes that Harlequin American stories have long since embraced, I would like to add a second dedication (too late to put in the book, which was already printed before Katrina hit): to all those rebuilding the storm-ravaged gulf coast, this one is for you. Thank you.

And to everyone: happy reading and happy holidays.

My best,
Leah Vale

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