Waiting on Love by Leah Atwood These days, Sunny Evans didn’t live up to her name. She was desperate. As in find-a-husband-online desperate. When her fiancée showed up, he was nothing as he described and not in a good way.  After losing the woman he loved to another man, Sean Pearson planned a weeklong escape to his grandfather’s cabin. Unfortunately for him, his GPS got him lost on back roads, and he stopped for directions at the first place he came across. The unexpected detour led to events Sean couldn’t have anticipated, and he saw the opportunity to make a difference in Sunny’s life. Could the GPS have led him to the right place after all?   Mistletoe and Mochas by Lynnette Bonner Chelsea Tan looks up from the mocha she’s making to see Cannon Jones. She nearly drops the cup. He hasn’t contacted her once in the past several weeks. She’d gotten his message loud and clear. But now he wants to spend time with her? Cannon will just see how gullible she is this time! Cannon hopes Chelsea will understand the reasons he hasn’t been in contact. But she’s as frosty as the Seattle air the week before Christmas. He’d better pull out all his charm. Maybe with the help of a few mochas and a little bit of mistletoe all will not be lost. Cephalopod Cupid by Kathleen Freeman Lacey McDowell has the best job in the world. She’s a Marine biologist at the Seattle Aquarium. Job satisfaction, especially her favorite “exhibit,” an octopus escape artist named Gabriel, should make the coming Christmas merry enough. It doesn’t. With her friend and coworker marrying her ex-boyfriend, it may be time for a change. The N.O.A.A. research vessel in port is looking for a marine biologist. But how can Lacey leave Gabriel? And what about the boy who loves her favorite cephalopod, or his father, a handsome executive who’s moving to Seattle? Gabriel seems willing to sacrifice his future for instinct. Not Lacey. Christmas Bells are Ringing by Lesley Ann McDaniel Having recently relocated to Seattle, Shelby longs for someone special in her life. When a handsome green-eyed stranger walks into the coffee shop where she works, her interest is piqued. Later, she finds a bag containing five beautiful hand-painted Christmas bells on the cream and sugar table. No one comes back to claim it, so she decides to do a little detective work. Does she dare hope that it will lead her to the stranger with the magnetic green eyes? Seattle Rayne by Sylvia Stewart Loneliness has hovered over Rayne DeMarco’s life ever since leaving East Africa to live on her own in Seattle. Frequent infusions of coffee have neither enlivened her flagging business as a freelance writer nor her social life. Seattle’s gray winter skies seem to mirror her life. Then a mama cat with three rambunctious kittens finds a home in her above-the-garage apartment, and a handsome Montana cowboy, Matt Hayes, walks back into her life. Bring in a puppy who needs a little love and you have a Seattle romance that is as sure to warm your heart as the hot coffee Seattleites crave. All I want for Christmas by Janalyn Voigt Hailey may just give up on men entirely. When Corey broke her heart, her best friend Matt helped pick up the pieces. Matt made his interest in her no secret when they first met but seemed happy to accept a friendship, at least until now. With Corey looking her way again, he’s started acting funny. If Matt wasn’t a cubicle worker moonlighting as a Seattle street musician, this would be easy, but Hailey can’t afford a drag on her ambitions. She needs to climb the career ladder to keep her childhood home, all she has left of her parents. After Amy ditched him for a man with more money, Matt isn’t about to tell Hailey that the ‘fiddle’ he carries is a Stradivarius or that he owns a tuxedo. Let her love him for himself or not at all. Scrooge Falls in Love by Susette Williams Tate Stephens, the high school principal, begrudgingly agrees to play Scrooge in the school Christmas play. Tate is irritated that Charity Fletcher, his nephew’s teacher and director of the play, chose his handicapped nephew for the part of Tiny Tim. Didn’t she find it cruel to typecast his nephew that way?  Charity reluctantly gives Tate a role in the school play so that he can make sure that Matthias is safe. Charity hopes that Uncle Tate will make a similar transformation as Scrooge in their rendition of the play. Can the school play be a success, or will Tate become the Scrooge who wouldn’t change and spoils Christmas?