Since Last
Christmas by Jeffe Kennedy
This Christmas, Amy
is getting what she wants. Her career in fashion design is taking off. Her
boyfriend Brad is the dictionary definition of a catch. Soon he’ll buy the
massive diamond that makes it official: she’s nobody’s hard luck case anymore.
Her old
friend Jon ought to understand. A decade ago he was the other scholarship kid with a crap
family. He got her quirks, her insecurities, her rules, her passions. Now he
swears she’s not really happy, and she’s forgotten something that proves it.
When Amy
throws away everything she’s worked for with one impulsive, impossible word,
she’s horrified she’s proved Jon right...and strangely, secretly excited. That
he knows more than the past she wants to forget — he knows what heats her up,
what makes her heart race.
But
remembering what she’s forgotten since last Christmas might mean breaking all
the rules…
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EXCERPT
The endorphins kicked in around
mile three. They usually do, give or take. Good thing, too, because the bitter
wind coming off the lake in the predawn dark had been sapping my will to
persevere. A lot to say, coming from the Queen of Perseverance. I really do
believe that everything in life can be had if we simply stick to a goal long
enough.
I
might have started out with nothing, but I’d finish with having it all.
Heat
flooded through me, even my frozen face warming, my muscles going long and
languid, naturally induced joy hitting my bloodstream. I let out a whooping war
cry of triumph, the sound bouncing back from the silent asphalt. My whole life
was hitting a metaphorical mile three—all the slog of hard work finally paying
off and reaching maximum happiness.
Just
like the acceleration of the holiday season. With the solstice a few days away,
the Chicago nights grew longer and colder, the sun coming and fading again in
brief glimpses. But soon we’d round that corner and then—Christmas! New Year’s
Eve! Valentine’s Day, followed by burgeoning spring and hot, lazy summer, with
boating parties and barbeques.
Autumn
pretty much sucks for romantic holidays, so I’d looked forward to the end of
that slog. Who ever had a cozy Halloween? And don’t get me started on all
that’s wrong with the glut-fest of toxic food and family that is Thanksgiving.
The Christmas holidays, now, they herald the beginning of the romance season.
Played correctly, the festivity of the parties starting now could coast right
through Labor Day weekend.
And
this year, I had plans for a romantic autumn.
I
ran at a fast and easy pace. The recent downturn with Brad just before and over
Thanksgiving had been like nearing the end of the first three miles of any
run—clunky, sometimes stiff, occasionally chilly, and always a challenge to
stick through—and, yeah, it made me think about giving up. But now we’d hit our
stride, and just in time for fabulous holiday dating.
I
had my outfits planned, and the right guy in position at last—the perfect date
to bring to the Wildwood Academy reunion dance. Not just any date, but Brad
Deffelman, who’d been shortlisted twice now for Chicago Magazine’s Most Eligible Bachelor list. Plus, Brad had
invited me to his parents’ Christmas Day open house, which would be so much
better than going home to my disaster of a family.
I’d
spent a lot of time on Brad’s Christmas present, and it was perfect. Well, it
would be, once I finished. My first couture tuxedo, custom-made for Brad’s
male-model physique. For maybe the first time in my life, Christmas would be
fun and romantic and, well, joyous. No weird charity gifts. No odd array of
unwrapped things my dad picked up from the only open convenience store on his
way home from the bar. This year, Brad would give me that perfect Tiffany
diamond ring I’d had my eye on. Made me giddy just to contemplate it.
Brad
had been making all the right noises—the invite to spend Christmas with his
family, confirming which ring I liked, talking about our future plans—so I
wasn’t jumping the gun.
This
was it. I wasn’t going to tell anyone—no jinxing it!—but I’d be engaged by the
new year.
I’d
made reservations for a spectacularly glitzy New Year’s Eve, the Super Bowl of
romance. Brad liked me to take care of that kind of thing, as he trusted my
taste, and he did his part by footing the bill. The outfit I’d planned included
fingerless gloves in case I’d get to show off that new ring. A bit of a fashion
risk—I’d put a lot of effort into making sure they didn’t look too eighties—but
the final look would be worth it. Especially as it would match the tuxedo I’d
painstakingly crafted for Brad to wear.
If I worked my connections, and if his mother
weighed in, we might even be able to pull off an autumn wedding. Then I’d have
a romantic anniversary to mitigate the fall doldrums. I could picture the
invitations. Not ostentatious, but subtly stylish, a floral theme but autumnal.
Maybe an ivory vellum with rust-colored accents, a stylized chrysanthemum in
burgundy, a slim ribbon in a deep chocolate brown. Depending on my eventual
budget, I’d go for fantastic invitations and a simpler ceremony. Stylish and
intimate. It’s amazing what you can pull off if you make the decorations
yourself, which I had the skills to do.
I
had to have four bridesmaids—no way I could leave out any of the Fab Five—but I
could make their gowns and my own, no problem. And maybe Brad’s parents would
host the whole thing. I wasn’t too proud for that. My parents certainly
wouldn’t, even if they could find the money. A fall wedding would round out the
year nicely. Late September or early October, I would marry Brad, and my life
would finally begin.
***Giveaway*** One digital copy either mobi or epub available of Last Dance, book 1 in the Missed Connections series. Please comment to be eligible to win. Winner will be drawn on Christmas Day!!!
About Jeffe Kennedy
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author
whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has
been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship
for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award.
Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy
The Twelve
Kingdoms hit
the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of
the Tala,
received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the
Year while the
sequel, The Tears of
the Rose
received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT
Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT
Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world,
beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms. Book one in that series, The
Pages of the Mind,
has also been nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Fantasy Romance of
2016 and won RWA’s 2017 RITA® Award. The second book, The Edge of the Blade, released December 27, 2016, and is a
PRISM finalist, along with The Pages of
the Mind. The next in the series, The Shift of the Tide, will be out in August, 2017. A high
fantasy trilogy taking place in The
Twelve Kingdoms world is forthcoming from Rebel Base books in 2018.
She also introduced a new fantasy romance
series, Sorcerous
Moons, which
includes Lonen’s War,
Oria’s
Gambit, The Tides of BÃ ra,
and The
Forests of Dru. She’s begun releasing a new contemporary erotic romance
series, Missed Connections, which
started with Last Dance and continues in With a Prince.
In 2019, St. Martins Press will release
the first book, The Orchid Throne, in
a new fantasy romance series, The
Forgotten Empires.
Her other works include a number of
fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of
Thorns; the
contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of
Passion; an
erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the
Opera; and
the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with
two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of
Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy
Yost Literary Agency.
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