THE SUGAR COOKIE SWEETHEART SWAP

Three best friends attend their small-town community Christmas cookie swap, bemoaning their loveless state, but the holiday season will prove to be their most romantic ever.

Clara, Abby and Lily have been friends since childhood, and they are each devoted to their Blue Ridge town of Pine Mountain. Abby and Lily are both baking entrepreneurs, while Clara can’t boil water, so it’s no big surprise when Clara has one of her friends bake her cookies for the annual cookie swap. It is, however, a huge surprise when Clara’s assigned to write a column on holiday cookie baking for the local paper. Trekking to the bookstore a town away for a cookie cookbook for beginners, she runs into Will, her college crush/friend, who is now the hunky cover model for a charity beefcake firemen’s calendar. Still reeling from the attraction she’s never forgotten, Clara is both mortified and fascinated when she nearly burns down her house, Will comes to her rescue, and she winds up in his guest room. Holiday yearning and romance ensue. Meanwhile, Abby, who has created an online business selling anatomically correct gingerbread men through the innovative use of peppermint sticks, regrets her decision to bring some of her wares to the conservative community’s cookie swap. Saved by a gorgeous stranger who walks in off the street and pays a fortune for the still-boxed cookies, Abby is stunned an hour later when she finds the handsome man unconscious in his wrecked car, the victim of a storm-related accident, and takes him to her isolated cabin to wait out the blizzard. Finally, Lily is preparing for the event of her life, a cookie baking contest at an area resort. She’s up against one of the best chefs around, Pete Mancuso, who just unwittingly humiliated Clara in front of the whole town. Lily wants nothing more than to beat the arrogant man and put him in his place, but the more time she spends getting to know him, the more she realizes his place is right by her side.

Three writers, three fun, sexy Christmas romances—light, sugary holiday fare.