The Christmas Special

 Okay–where should I begin?

My first story for Dreamspinner was a teeny tiny novella titled If I Must. It sold decently, and since then–Christmas, 2009– I’ve released one to two Christmas stories every year.

Some of them were novellas.

Many of the novellas have been bundled in one form or another, so it’s possible to get them in paperback.

The longer novellas either haven’t– Freckles is the one I can think of, or have been lengthened to be available in a paperback– and that would be Regret Me Not. 


A word about Freckles. Freckles has changed publishers–and while the first publisher released their 40K novellas in paperback, Dreamspinner Press does not. Freckles will be recovered and made available in March I think– but only as an e-book. BTW? The cover is still adorable, but DSP is doing cover reveals and it’s not available yet.

A word about Regret Me Not. Originally released as a novella– 40K– I loved the guys so much I wrote about them all year, and now have enough for a paperback. It will be released in paperback format for those of you who want it, and I’m pretty sure the extras will be available as a free download for everyone who already purchased the book. For everyone who hasn’t, the price will go up when it’s re-released, and you will get a 60K-ish short novel length book. Yay!

A word about Christmas Kitsch.  Originally available from Riptide with a different cover, this will be rereleased on December 7th. Nothing has changed. Okay. One thing. Rusty’s going to Stanford instead of Berkeley– don’t ask me to explain why, it makes me stabby.

A word about Candy Man. Candy Man is a novella, and it became the first in the series. If you’re a sucker for paperbacks, it can be found in the paperback of Bitter Taffy as a sort of free insert at the beginning. That makes the total EBOOKS in the series FOUR, but the total PAPERBACKS in the series, THREE.

And now, about Winter Ball. Winter Ball was a novel to start with, and it’s now the first of the series. The second is Summer Lessons, and the third–Clay and Dane’s story will be written this spring. (I’m excited about this!) The books will also be recovered because I love these books and although *I* loved the concept of the covers, I think we’ve firmly established that I have no taste, so the publishers are going to try with somebody who DOES have taste and see if we can’t cheerlead these books to a little more notice.

So we’re on to The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters, which is a name so long I’m not typing it again. Anyway– this too became the first of a series, four books in all, but the first three were short form. So the firs three– Winter Courtship, How to Raise an Honest Rabbit, and A Knitter in His Natural Habitat, were all bundled together into The Granby Knitting Menagerie for a paperback. The last book in the series–Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny’s Lair is full novel length and available in both formats.

And now for the big bundle.  If I Must, Christmas With Danny Fit, Turkey in the Snow, Puppy Car and Snow, and Going Up! are all fluffy, tiny, adorable, fun Christmas confection stories that are all of the sweet and only a touch of the tender, just to make the sweet taste better. Anyway, all five of those stories have been bundled into An Amy Lane Christmas, and are available for a bundled price (which is a pretty decent price, after all) but they are also available by themselves.

So there you go.

That leads us to Homebird, which is out on December 18th, and which will get it’s own page as we draw near because I SO want to talk about this story– there’s oh so much to say!

All of my Christmas stories are special to me. You might have noticed but I’m sort of obsessed with the “Oh my God, how bad could it get?” scenario, and you’ll never believe me when I tell you– I pull my punches. Even in Stain, I pulled my punches. Even in Chase.  In my Christmas stories, I never punch. I may give a little ear flick, just to deepen the happy, but I never punch. There may be some melancholy, and even some conflict–but I never punch. Holiday stories (and some of them are TRULY holiday stories and not Christmas stories at all. They’re sort of NEAR Christmas, actually) are meant to make us feel good–not worry.

So these stories are sweet. They’re tender. They’re not too scary or too angsty, and you never doubt the two people are going to end up together. The families are going to relent if there’s friction, and the dog will always be okay.

These are miracle stories, and we all need some of that in our lives.

I hope you all enjoy them–and it’s very possible there’s a couple here you haven’t read before.

I know I have to go back and count them every year I post.

And I’m always sort of proud.

I mean– that’s a heckuva lot of happy, right?

Yeah. Happy holidays everybody– and VERY happy reading!

OH! A word about Bells of Times Square– I loved this story, but it’s not included on this list. Bells is sad–it’s chest rippingly sad, and the HEA has been hotly debated. It finaled in the RITA awards, a thing I’ll always be proud of, and if you’re interested, I posted the link above. But this list is about the happy, and Bells doesn’t really fit. That doesn’t mean I don’t love it, just means that for most of us, who so desperately need to hear laughter and joy and goodness, now is not the time.

So here are the happy stories– go forth and read and know the world with a happy, sunshiny yellow glow. The hard shit is hard enough– let’s embrace some joy.

Amy