ALLISON LANE'S CHRISTMAS COLLECTION


3 Holiday Novellas: Second Chance, Heart's Desire, The Marriage Stakes


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Second Chance

Make the season bright with these original stories of Christmas love, written by five award-winning Regency authors. Heartwarming, celebratory, and romantic, each delightful story captures the essence of the Yuletide spirit - its loving good will and sharing, it pagentry and promise. This festive collection brims with holdiay joy.

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Heart's Desire

The gifts of Christmas are priceless -- good cheer, warm hearts, and happy times with friends. And now five bestselling Regency authors have made a special present to you--five brand-new stories. High-spirited and humorous, heartwarming and romantic and full of the fun and flavor of the holiday season they're the perfect present to share with friends and loved ones. And in each delightful story you'll find that there's one Christmas present that lasts all year round--the gift of true love....

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The Marriage Stakes


Celebrate the most joyous of seasons with these original stories of holiday romance from five of today's most beloved award-winning Regency authors. Each tale is set on Christmas Eve, capturing the season's true spirit of charity and goodwill, proving time and again why love is the greatest gift of all. This special collection is a perfect present for friends and lovers who find themselves looking forward to the holiday with delicious anticipation, wondering what awaits them under the tree--and under the mistletoe ....

Two beaux and a promise

A Bird in Hand



What Kind of Lady?

Blasts of wind and torrents of rain pelted a female figure in the distance. Suddenly, the river bank collapsed, tossing the woman and her horse into icy waters. Lord Randolph Symington threw open his coach door and dove in after her--soon overcome by the churning river, he discovered that only their combined efforts could save them from disaster.

The future duke collapsed afterwards and woke in the morning to find himself wrapped in blankets, alone with the mysterious Lady Elizabeth Fosdale in a small country cottage, his wounds tended and clothes drying by the fire. Although he had successfully avoided the marriage marts of the dreaded ton for years, he felt honor bound to propose. It was the only remedy for the scandal of their having spent the night alone together.

But this young woman, well past her come-out years and of questionable bloodlines, vehemently refused. Soon she was gone and he was determined to discover why....

Birds of a Feather



A Brush with Passion

Clad in spectacles and plain dresses, Joanna Patterson would make no impression at all on Lord Sedgewick Wylie, if she didn't keep running into him ... literally.

The great arbiter of fashion for London society, Sedge had the reputation of caring more about the cut of his coat than the feelings of others... a fact made all too clear to Joanna by his reaction to her. Exasperated by her clumsiness, Sedge insulted her in public--but in private could not forget her shapely figure and the deep chocolate brown of her eyes....

A mere chaperone, Joanna is no match for society's crown prince. And though their minds and hearts have much in common, it will take a public scandal to bring them together--for better or worse....

A Clandestine Courtship



A Bitter Homecoming

It had been many years since James had seen England. The murder of his twin brother had brought him home and shifted the responsibilities of the earldom of Ridgeway onto his own broad shoulders. Saddened by the circumstances of his return, he intends nevertheless to perform his duties, chief among them to identify his brother's killer.

There is only one advantage, it seems, to this homecoming -- the opportunity, once again, to gaze into Mary Layton's bottomless blue eyes. But too much has changed in his years away. The young beauty is now Lady Northrup, the baron's widow. Those lovely eyes now look upon him with confusion, perhaps even mistrust. Not wonder, with the horrid rumors that swirl about his head -- and the dastardly reputation his brother has left him to live down.

Under these wretched circumstance, love is simply not a possibility. But Mary's courageous heart will remind him that passion never gives up the fight...