Lauraine Snelling

Two joyous, romantic novellas are included in this volume. In "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" romance blooms between Thane and Blythe as they plan to give Thane's neglected niece the best Christmas ever. In "'Twas the Week Before Christmas" a mixed-up start to the season brings Elize a special lesson--and a present that doesn't fit in a box.

Kit, Beth, Elaine, and Teza, four women leading vastly different lives, are brought together through a quilting project Kit has started to raise money for breast cancer research, and as the women work on the project, they form an unexpected friendship and help one another cope with their personal tragedies and challenges.

Dinah Taylor has an orderly life that is just how she likes it. A perfectly furnished luxury apartment, a satisfying career as a scientist and CEO of her own company, and an uncomplicated personal life. But all of that changes when she meets seven-year-old Jonah.

Ragni, a single woman who is struggling with her job and her father's Alzheimer's disease, agrees against her will to fix up her great-grandmother's cabin. She's accompanied by her teenage niece, Erika, who has taken to wearing all black and rarely talks to Ragni anymore. Snelling takes this opportunity to weave together Ragni's story with the story of Nilda, her great-grandmother, who traveled out by train in the early 1900s to be a frontier housekeeper....

"With a secretive widow, a love-struck cowboy and a suspicious rancher standing in her way, Cassie Lockwood struggles to fulfill her father's dream of starting a horse ranch among the Black Hills of South Dakota."--from WorldCat.

Deborah MacCallister, head nurse at the Blessing hospital, has loved Toby Valders since her school days, but she's had enough of their on-again, off-again relationship. Toby truly cares for Deborah, but he's never felt like he could commit to marriage or a family. When Anton Genddarm, the new schoolteacher, comes to town, the young women of Blessing see a chance to force Toby's hand with a little strategic matchmaking. But real sparks fly between...

Broken by life's disappointments, four women forge a friendship that leads in unexpected directions. Drawn together at the weekend market held in the shelter's parking lot, the women pool their resources to fend off an unscrupulous conglomerate that threatens to replace the facility with a commercial development. As they fight to retain this haven for women in need, they find their own longings for home answered by the solace of faith and friendship....

Ingeborg, her husband Roald, and their son immigrate to America with high hopes in 1880. When New York doesn't measure up to their expectations, they continue westward until reaching the Dakota territory. The family must struggle to achieve their dream.

The people of the Dakota Territory suffer from back-breaking work and heart-breaking trials while opening their homesteads and developing a sense of community.

Ever so slowly Dakota Territory is being transformed from a vast prairie into rich farmland. But for Ingeborg and Haakan, realizing their dreams will not come without a struggle.