ST. MARTIN’S PRESS HOLIDAY ROMANCE TITLES

With this Christmas Ring by Manda Collins

A wallflower determined to fulfill a dying promise, the rogue she jilted years ago, and an orphaned baby are all brought together amidst the magic of Christmas in this new novella from Manda Collins. 
Miss Merry Parks makes a deathbed promise to a school friend that her infant daughter will be taken to her absent father. There’s only one problem—to find the baby’s father, she’ll have to consult his cousin, Viscount Wrotham, the man she jilted five years ago. The man she couldn’t forget. 
Alex Ponsonby, Viscount Wrotham, is stunned to find Merry Parks—looking more lovely than ever--on his doorstep with an infant in her arms. His shock soon turns to dismay when he learns his own cousin William is the man who abandoned his wife and child. As head of the family he’s duty bound to see right is done. But he can't let this opportunity pass. He’ll take Merry and the baby to his cousin, but he’ll woo her back in the process.
Merry agrees to travel with Alex and the baby to Wrotham Castle, where the entire Ponsonby family has gathered for Christmas, but her plans to see the baby settled then leave are ruined by a snowstorm. After five years apart, Alex and Merry will spend the week getting reacquainted. Perhaps it’s the spirit of the holiday, or the magic of the season, but there could be something else in the air this Yuletide…A Christmas Reunion.

Manda Collins is the author of the Studies in Scandal series, The Lords of Anarchy series, The Ugly Duckling series and the Wicked Widows series as well as several other Regency-set romances. She spent her teen years wishing she’d been born a couple of centuries earlier, preferably in the English countryside. Time travel being what it is, she resigned herself to life with electricity and indoor plumbing, and read lots of books. When she’s not writing, she’s helping other people use books, as an academic librarian.

The Christmas Cowboy Hero by Donna Grant

Release Day Blitz & Guest Post For THE PLAYBOY PRINCE AND THE NANNY By Donna Alward

Prince Diego Navarro is the “spare” to his brother's "heir". While Raoul performs his crown prince duties with the appropriate sense of nobility and poise, Diego’s garnered a bit of a reputation as a playboy - despite the good he does behind the scenes with his favorite charities.
But when tragedy strikes and his sister-in-law is killed in a car accident, Diego knows it's time for the playboy to step up. If not for his brother, then for his niece and nephew, who now find themselves without a mother.
Which is where Rose Walters comes in.
Rose isn't intimidated by money or glitz. The veteran nanny has worked for the rich and minimally famous, but a manor house is no comparison to a castle… or the handsome princes who live there. However, the worst thing she could possibly do is fall for the gorgeous playboy with a surprising heart of gold. He’s a prince; she’s the help. He lives in the tabloids; she loves her privacy. But when her two darling charges start to play matchmaker, Diego and Rose don’t stand a chance.
The Playboy Prince and the Nanny is the first book in Donna Alward's royal duology.

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Why The Princes of Marazur?

I’ll confess, I love royalty stories. Years ago, I wrote a book for Harlequin Romance called The Rancher’s Runaway Princess. You see, I wrote mostly Westerns for Harlequin, but this book was a sneaky way to indulge my secret love of glamour and fantasy: I took my princess, Lucy, and plunked her on a ranch in Alberta. The thing was, for most of her life she never knew who her father was. Finding out turned her life upside down. Of course, by the end of the story she goes back to Marazur, my fictional Mediterranean principality. She has two half-brothers, Raoul and Diego, who do their part to welcome her into the family.

Of course then I wanted to write the brothers. But more cowboys called my name, and then new series, and they stayed, lingering in the back of my mind. Finally last year I asked my editor at St. Martin’s if they’d be interested in the duet and she said YES! So The Playboy Prince and the Nanny was begun, to be followed by The Crown Prince’s Bride in January.

Princess Luciana (Lucy) and her family even have a few cameo appearances!

The Inspiration behind the Princes of Marazur…

When it came to really sitting down and planning out the Princes of Marazur duet, I had to do some serious thinking about my princes. I’d already established them a bit in The Rancher’s Runaway Princess, but this was different. They had more of a walk-on role in that book, and now they were going to be center stage.

I knew that:

Raoul is the Crown Prince, and takes it seriously. That he’s married with a girl and a boy. That he and Diego lost their mother when they were very young, and that Lucy (their half-sister) is born of an affair.

Diego is the “Spare” heir, and he’s the one who rebelled as he grew older, establishing a reputation as a palace bad boy and playboy. Sure, he went to university, but he was more interested in the polo ponies and fillies of other sorts than really studying. I also knew that when the story started, he would need to be trying to shed that reputation, build some credibility, and be an asset to the family.

Sound like anyone else you can think of? #willandharry

I also found myself thinking about the remake of Sabrina that was out years ago, featuring Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear. Now granted, this heroine isn’t going to fall for Diego and then really realize she’s in love with Raoul. But it does represent a bit of the dynamic between the brothers, much like Linus and David in the movie. Linus doesn’t think David will ever settle down, doesn’t think he takes things seriously, and David’s used to being underestimated. In the end, Linus learns to loosen his stranglehold on his responsibilities and trust David, who is ready to grow up and show there’s more to him than his past reputation.

Of course, once I started writing, the characters took on a life of their own and simply became Diego and Raoul, with their own issues and struggles and triumphs.

EXCERPT