About the Author
Sheila Roberts lives on a lake in the Pacific
Northwest. She’s happily married and has three children. She’s
been writing since 1989, but she did lots of things before settling in to her
writing career, including owning a singing telegram company and playing in a
band. Her band days are over, but she still enjoys writing songs. Sheila's
books are best sellers and often appear as Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Her
novel "Angel Lane"
was named one of Amazon's top ten romances in 2009. Her novel "On Strike
for Christmas" was a Lifetime Network movie and her novel "The Nine
Lives of Christmas" is now a Hallmark movie, scheduled to air November
8th.
When she’s not speaking to women’s groups or at conferences or hanging out with
her girlfriends she can be found writing about those things near and dear to
women’s hearts: family, friends, and chocolate.
For
More Information
About the Book:
Title:
Christmas on Candy Cane Lane
Author: Sheila Roberts
Publisher: Mira (Harlequin)
Pages: 400
Genre: Women’s Fiction / Romance
Everyone's getting ready for Christmas in Icicle Falls,
especially on Candy Cane Lane,
where holiday decorating is taken very seriously. Tilda Morrison, town cop, is
looking forward to celebrating Christmas in her first house…until she discovers
that she's expected to "keep up" with the neighbors, including Maddy
Donaldson, the inspiration behind the whole extravaganza. But this year,
someone's destroying Maddie's precious candy canes! Thank goodness for the cop
in their neighborhood.
Tilda already has her hands full trying to sort out her love life and fix up
her fixer-upper. Oh, and won't it be fun to have the family over for Christmas
dinner? Not really… Then there's her neighbor, Ivy Bohn. As a newly single mom,
Ivy can sum up the holiday in two words: Bah, humbug. But she's determined to
give her kids a perfect Christmas.
Despite family disasters, irritating ex-husbands and kitchen catastrophes,
these three women are going to find out that Christmas really is the most
wonderful time of the year!
For More Information
- Christmas on Candy Cane Lane
is available at Amazon.
- Discuss this book at PUYB
Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.
Book Excerpt:
Chapter One
The holidays are tailor-made for
getting to know your neighbors better.
―Muriel Sterling,
Making
the Holidays Bright: How to Have a Perfect Christmas
“Here’s an accident waiting to happen,”
Tilda Morrison said grimly. Just what nobody wanted on the day before
Thanksgiving.
“Not if we get to her in time,” said her partner,
Jamal Lincoln.
“Why us?” Tilda grumbled to Cherie, the
dispatcher. “This is a job for animal control.”
“Chief said you’d say that,” Cherie told her. “He
also said to tell you that today it’s a job for you and to bring a rope and get
to work before somebody ends up hurt.”
“I don’t believe this,” Tilda muttered as Jamal
turned on the look-out-here-come-the-cops lights and shot their patrol car out
of town toward the highway.
“We’re in Icicle Falls.
Believe it,” Jamal said. “You still got that rope in the trunk?”
“Yes. It’s there from the last time.” Tilda
frowned. “You know, this really isn’t the job of the Icicle Falls Police Force.
I don’t care if Stumpy Hodgkins is best buds with the chief.”
“You gonna tell that to the chief?”
“Yeah, I am. As soon as we get back to the
station.”
Jamal grinned. “That’s what I love about you,
partner. You’re fearless. You should’ve been a man. I swear you’ve got more
balls than most guys.” “Thanks. I think.”
Tilda knew she was a tough cookie, and she liked
being tough. She liked being a modern woman, able to stand up for herself and
hold her own against any man. But she also had a feminine side and, secretly,
she fantasized about some man tougher than her, pushing her up against a wall
and having at it.
She’d thought she’d found that man, but it hadn’t
worked out. He’d never bothered to look beneath her tough exterior and check
out her sweet, soft side. Instead, he’d fallen for the kind of woman Tilda
thought of as a cream puff. Maybe that was what all men really wanted, someone
as sweet as honey and as elastic and bendable as warm taffy. Tilda wasn’t a
bending kind of woman. Sadly, there were very few men who appreciated that.
Jamal did, but he was her partner. Then there was
Devon Black, town bad boy, the king of speeding tickets and barroom brawls, who
thought he was God’s gift to women. In fact, he thought he was God’s gift to her.
Christmas might have been just a month away, but she had no intention of
unwrapping Devon Black.
She frowned, thinking of their last encounter. “What
the hell?” he’d said angrily when she’d pulled him over a week ago for a broken
taillight. “I wasn’t speeding.”
“No, you have a taillight out.”
Instead of showing some respect and thanking her
for letting him know, he’d flashed her a cocky grin and said, “You’re looking
for excuses to see me.” As if she had nothing better to do that chase after
wolves dressed in blue jeans.
If I wanted to see you, I could just wait till the
next bar fight,” she retorted. It was how she’d met him when he moved to town.
Trouble followed Devon around like a lost
puppy. “Now, do you want me to let you off with a warning or do you want to
keep flapping that big mouth of yours and up the ante?”
That had shut him up—until she gave him his
warning and turned to leave. “I’m working the bar at The Man Cave. Come on by
after you get off work and I’ll give you a beer on the house.” As if he owned
the place. It was his brother’s. He just filled in on weekends.
“In your
dreams,” she’d called back over her shoulder.
“And yours, too, I’ll bet. I can show you some new
uses for those handcuffs.”
“Oh, there’s an original line,” she’d muttered. Fifty Shades of Devon
Black. No way, even if he was ridiculously
gorgeous. So was a hot-fudge sundae, but look what it did to your butt.
“There’s Stumpy,” Jamal said, bringing her back to
the present.
Sure enough, the short, old guy was hobbling as
fast as he could down the side of the snowbanked road in his jeans and cowboy
boots and leather bomber jacket, his hunting cap mashed down over his ears, a
lasso dangling from his right hand and Daisy’s halter from his left. And there,
half a mile farther up the road, trotted his horse, the escape artist. Loose
again. Not a good thing, considering the fact that the old paint was deaf.
“You can turn off the lights now,” Tilda said, and
Jamal obliged.
They pulled up beside Stumpy and Tilda lowered the
window. “Stumpy, this is the third time this month she’s gotten loose.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Daisy!” he hollered at the
horse. “Dang it all, come back.”
Sometimes Tilda wondered how deaf Daisy really was.
Either she was faking it or she was psychic because the darned beast tossed her
head as though she was saying, “No way.” Then she started across the road. Oh,
great.
An SUV came over the rise and Tilda sucked in her
breath. The car skidded to a halt and waited while Daisy stood in the middle of
the road, trying to decide what to do. The driver soon tired of waiting and
honked. The noise didn’t faze Daisy. She stood there, watching Tilda, Jamal and
Stumpy as if wondering what they were doing out here on a cold winter afternoon.
Then she strolled back to her own side of the road and continued her journey,
probably looking for some other horses to spend Thanksgiving with.
“Give me the rope and get in,” Tilda commanded.
With Stumpy safe inside and the rope in hand, they set off in hot pursuit.
Well, semihot, not wanting to end up hitting the animal.
“I’d’a gotten her,” Stumpy insisted from the
backseat. “I don’t know why Mildred keeps calling you guys.”
“Because she’s seen the way you drive,” Tilda
said. They were lucky that Stumpy hadn’t taken the horse trailer. The week
before, he’d attempted to rope Daisy from behind the wheel, skidding into Dan
Masters’s truck and effectively blocking traffic for a good forty minutes while
they sorted things out. Daisy, naturally, had gotten away and wound up at the llama
farm.
They’d almost reached the horse. “Stop here,”
Tilda told Jamal. “We don’t want to spook her.”
“Everything spooks her,” Stumpy grumbled.
The natural retort would be, “Then why do you keep
the dumb critter?” But Tilda didn’t say it. She knew why. Daisy had been their
granddaughter Willow’s
horse. Willow
had died two years earlier from a brain tumor. Stumpy could no more get rid of
the horse than he could throw out the pictures of their only granddaughter that
filled their living room.
Tilda got out of the car and shut the door as
Daisy moved down the road a few paces.
“Go get ’er, cowgirl,” Jamal teased.
“Ha, ha,” Tilda muttered. Jamal was the size of Texas and could take
down three men single-handed, but he was a city boy and no use whatsoever in
capturing a deaf horse.
Tilda moved away from the patrol car. Daisy,
sensing pursuit, trotted a few more feet, then stopped and looked around. Neener,
neener, neener. You can’t catch me.
Oh, yes, I can.
You may be big but you’ve got a brain
the size of an onion. Tilda squatted next to the freshly
piled snow on the side of the road and waited. She’d done her share of ropin’
and ridin’. Gone to horse camp at the nearby guest ranch all through high
school. She was not going to be outsmarted by a horse.
Daisy tossed her mane and then, to show that she
wasn’t even remotely worried about Tilda and her rope, decided to enjoy a
little roadside snack, pulling up a mouthful of snow-tipped grass.
Tilda slowly stood and sneaked forward a few feet.
Daisy raised her head and Tilda froze. This was like playing Red Light, Green
Light when she was a kid. Daisy went back for seconds. Okay, green light. Tilda
moved forward again.
Daisy lifted her head and checked to see where
Tilda was.
Frozen in place, of course.
The next time the horse went for some grass Tilda
moved in, and this time when Daisy lifted her head Tilda swung the rope and…missed.
Daisy shied away and trotted off down the road and
Tilda swore.
“You rope about as good as you shoot,” Jamal
called from the patrol car.
Tilda gave him the finger and started the whole
process again. Horses were such foodies. Tilda could have lured over any other
equine simply by shaking a can of oats. Was there such a thing as horse hearing
aids? If so, it would sure make catching Daisy a lot easier.
It took two more tries before she got the rope
around Daisy’s neck, although the third try wasn’t exactly the charm. Daisy
neighed and pulled away, and even though Tilda had planted her feet, the horse
still managed to yank her over into the snow. “Oh, no, you don’t,” Tilda
growled, struggling back to her feet. “Bring the halter,” she yelled.
Stumpy climbed out, holding it. “We got her now,”
he said gleefully.
We. Yeah, right.
Finally Daisy was haltered and rewarded for
cooperating with the police with a pat on the neck. “You’d better stop this
escape-artist stuff or we’re gonna ship you off to become dog food,” Tilda
threatened.
Daisy just tossed her head yet again. She knew
Tilda was all talk and no action.
Tilda was equally stern with Stumpy. “You make
sure your fence is well mended and you keep that barn door shut,” she told him
as she handed over the escapee. “We can’t keep coming out to help you catch
her.” She felt bad about being mean to the old guy. He was in his seventies and
had arthritis in both hips, and maintaining the house and barn on their five-acre
spread was getting to be too much for him. His wife was ready to downsize.
Maybe being in trouble with the cops would motivate Stumpy to find a home for
Daisy and move someplace smaller.
Stumpy hung his head. “I know, Tilda. You guys
have better things to do.”
“In Icicle
Falls?” Jamal cracked as
they drove off, leaving Stumpy and Daisy to make their own way home. “Right.”
“Hey, you want action? Go to New York or LA,” Tilda said, and turned up
the heat. They’d have to swing by her place so she could get some dry pants.
“No, thanks,” he said with a grin. “No horses to
chase in LA. Anyway, I’d probably get stuck riding with some clown who farts
all the time. Besides, where am I gonna find a lady cop as cool as you?”
That made her smile. “If you’re trying to flatter
me…”
He snorted. “Like that would get me anywhere.” He
shook his head. “It sucks when the best woman in town also happens to be your
partner.”
“Okay, now it’s getting really thick in here.” She
had a pretty good face and her body was in mint condition but, sadly, there
were too many good-looking women and not enough men in this town. She glanced out
the window at the snowy firs and pines. “Sometimes I think I should’ve moved to
Seattle.”
Except that Icicle
Falls was her home and
her roots ran too deep. Hmm. Maybe she was root-bound.
Jamal grunted. “You should’ve thought of that
before you bought a house. Hey, we still on for Saturday?”
“Yep. When are you coming back from your mom’s?”
“Friday morning.”
“Good. You can help me finish packing.”
“You know, some of us have to fill in for you and
work that day. Who takes vacation on Thanksgiving weekend, anyway?”
Somebody who had a lot of vacation days piled up
and more seniority than half the guys on the force. Tilda grinned at him and
played the world’s smallest violin on her fingers.
“All I gotta say is you better feed me.”
“`Cause you’re a growing boy?”
“Order something from the deli. I don’t wanna get
poisoned,” he joked. “Where’d you not learn to cook?”
“From my mom.”
“Come on, your mom owns Pancake Haus. She can’t be
that bad a cook.”
“She hires people to do stuff in the kitchen, you
dope.” Tilda sighed. “The turkey will probably be dry and we’ll have stuffing
out of a box. But I like stuffing out of a box. And Mom’s great with pickles
and olives. And at least Aunt Joyce and the cousins will be bringing the
candied yams and casseroles.”
“What are you bringing?”
“Pumpkin pie.”
“From?”
“What do you mean ‘from’?”
“I know you ain’t bakin’ it.”
Busted. Tilda shrugged. “Gingerbread Haus.”
“Yep, you’re gonna make some lucky guy a great
husband someday.”
“Oh, ha, ha.”
He shook his head. “Somehow, I just can’t picture
you in a house.”
“What I should be living in, a yurt?”
“More like an army barracks.”
“I do have a feminine side, you know.”
“Sure you do.”
She did, and she could hardly wait to get
everything all squared away in her new house on Candy Cane Lane. She’d have dried flowers
on the dining table and she was going to give that quilted wall hanging her
cousin Georgie had made for her a place of honor on the living room wall. The
house had three bedrooms, two baths, a big living room with a fireplace and a
den, which she was going to turn into a kick-ass party room where her pals from
the force could come over and play Call of Duty and World
of Warcraft. The kitchen was bigger than the one she’d had in her condo. Once
she put in new flooring, it would be great. Lots of room to…heat frozen
dinners. Or make cookies. She made a mean chocolate chip cookie. Maybe, with
her fancy new kitchen, she’d graduate to cake or pie or something.
Expanding her cooking skills would have to wait,
though. The house needed some serious work. It had been a bank repo and the
previous owners had done a fair amount of damage. Walls would have to be
repainted, gutters replaced and, of course, the kitchen set to rights. And she’d
have to replace the carpeting, which was badly stained and a little on the
smelly side. Well, okay, a lot. She hoped she could afford to give herself new
carpeting for Christmas, at least in the living room and den.
“I don’t know, Tillie girl,” her mom had said when
they’d first gone to see the place. “Sure looks like a lot of work. You really want
to mess with that?”
“Yes,” Tilda had replied. “It’s in a great
neighborhood. It’ll be a good investment.”
“It’ll be a pain in the patootie,” Mom had
corrected her.
Yeah, but it would be her pain in
the patootie and she was ready for it. For the past five years she’d been
envisioning herself in a house with a great guy and a couple of kids and a big,
friendly dog. The guy thing hadn’t happened and she’d decided there was no point
in waiting around. She was going to get her house and the dog, too. Heck, maybe
even a kid. These days you didn’t need a man to have kids. These days, it
seemed you didn’t need a man for much of anything.
Tilda wanted one, anyway. There were still some
things nobody did better than men, and she was darned tired of being the only
one who ever saw the lacy bras and matching thongs she wore under her uniform.
A man with a handsome, swarthy face and an
admirable set of pecs suddenly appeared at the back of her mind. Oh, no. Devon
Black was not in the running for that cozy life with the house, the kids and
the dog. Devon Black did not deserve to see her in her bra and
panties. Or out of them.
Someday she’d find the right man. New people moved
to Icicle Falls all the time. Maybe Santa would
bring her the perfect man for Christmas next year. This year it was a house.
And that was enough to ask for. After all, there was only so much the jolly,
old guy in red could fit in his sack...
Review: Christmas in Candy Cane Lane showcases the lives of three women that live on one festive street. Candy Cane Lane is a special street in Icicle Falls. All the homes on the street go all out for Christmas, even though it is a headache to many of the residents.
Newcomer Tilda is local police officer and she's not a pleasant lady. She's bought a fixer upper. She's not as festive as some. Then there's Ivy, a divorcee trying to keep things perfect for her young kids. Lastly there's Maddy who is just way too into the holiday.
Each woman has issues to deal with, Tilda's feeling for a local bad boy, Ivy's ex, who wants a reconciliation and Maddy who should spent more time with her family than worrying about Candy Cane Lane. Toss into the mix someone who is messing up the decorations on the block and you get a very unique holiday story.
I really liked getting to know each of the women here. Tilda was the toughest one to like at first, but she grows on you and she becomes such fun. Ivy is the one you really love the whole way through. She's got it tough, even though she doesn't, if that makes sense. It is Maddy that I had a hard time dealing with. For a person that wanted to do good for everyone, she was sure blind to the stuff going on in her family.
What I love about these types of novels are that they aren't romance, though there is some there, but its more about life and relationships.
If you love stories by Debbie Macomber or Robyn Carr, you'll love Sheila Roberts and Icicle Falls.
Rating: 5 flowers
About Food Whore
About Jessica Tom
