This Year, Make it a Sizzling-Hot Cowboy Christmas!

Christmas out west is maybe the best time of year.  I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico for two years, and I have to tell you, Christmas in Santa Fe is a magical event. A carpet of snow on the ground. Bright red chili ristras to welcome you on doorways. The scent of piñon pine in every fireplace, in every home, restaurant, or bar you walk into! And luminaria (brown paper bag candles) light up rooftops and pathways, the entire town turns into a Rocky Mountain fairyland. 

Yep, a Cowboy Christmas is a happy time—it can also be downright romantic if you happen to be author Melissa Cutler, who I'm hosting today on Get Lost in a Story. Melissa writes Christmas Cowboy Romance like nobody else I know. Go ahead and put one of these sizzling-hot romances on your ereader—they're guaranteed keep you warm this holiday season. 

They also make great gifts! 

Merry Christmas, and happy reading! Jillian Stone

ONE MORE TASTE

If you can’t take the heat…

Chef Emily Ford has the talent and ambition to make it in the cutthroat culinary world—which is why she refuses to accept her demotion at the hands of Knox Briscoe, the new CEO of Briscoe Ranch Resort. He has grand plans that include bringing in a celebrity chef to helm an exciting new restaurant at the resort, but Emily has plans of her own—to do whatever it takes to change his mind…

Cut out of the Briscoe fortune by an old feud that left his family in ruins, Knox grew up dreaming of revenge. Out-maneuvering his uncle for control of Briscoe Ranch is merely the first step in a grand plan that doesn’t include the brazen and beautiful Emily Ford…or the attraction that sizzles between them. With both their futures on the line, can they keep their desires on simmer—or are they headed from the frying pan straight into the fire?

Buy links:  Amazon    B&N   iTunes 

IF SANTA WERE A COWBOY

This Christmas, Santa wears a Stetson…

Paul Savage loves Christmas at Briscoe Ranch Resort, when he gets to take a break from being a back country guide to play Santa in the resort’s lobby and talk to kids about toys. The last thing he expects is his high school crush to come waltzing in as his new assistant photographer, wheeling a suitcase that’s more naughty than nice.

Kelly Walker is a disaster. All she’d wanted was to spice up her life by saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity, which is when the universe started pelting her with no’s. So when she comes across a job listing for a holiday photographer working with the sweet, scrawny boy whose advances she’d laughed off in high school, she jumps on the chance to turn her bad Karma around by giving Paul a second chance.
Trouble is, Paul’s anything but scrawny anymore, and his cowboy swagger throws her grand plans for a loop–especially when he tempts her with a red hot proposition of his own. Kelly’s in way over her head, but as she gets swept up in the magic of Briscoe Ranch’s holiday charms–and Paul’s–could Kelly’s year of no’s be leading up to the ‘yes’ of a lifetime?

Buy links:  Amazon     B&N    iTunes 

THE MISTLETOE EFFECT

It’ll be a Christmas to remember when hotel heiress Carina Briscoe is roped into a pretend marriage with cowboy James Decker, the bad boy stable manager of her family’s Texas resort. The marriage might be a sham but the sparks between them are anything but. Still, with a little help from Carina’s interfering family, they might end up with the greatest Christmas gift of all: true love.

Buy links:   Amazon   B&N   iTunes 



Melissa Cutler knows she has the best job in the world, dividing her time between her dual passions for writing sexy small town contemporary romances, western romances, and edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense for a variety of publishers, including Harlequin, Kensington Books, Penguin, and Macmillan. She was struck at an early age by an unrelenting travel bug and is probably planning her next vacation as you read this. When she's not globetrotting, she's enjoying Southern California's flip-flop wearing weather and wrangling two rambunctious kids. Find out more about Melissa and her books at www.melissacutler.net or write to her at melissa@melissacutler.net . You can also find Melissa on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MelissaCutlerBooks) and Twitter (@m_cutler)

What do you love most about the Christmas season? The scents? Pine trees, ginger bread baking,   the crisp cold smell of snow (or is that ozone?) The sounds? Caroling, Christmas music playing in all the shops and stores, a fire crackling in the fireplace—and jingle bells! The sights? Christmas lights, ornaments, the sight of Santa Claus coming down the chimney? The tastes? Sugar cookies, candy canes, ginger bread men, hot buttered rum or egg nog? Please share your favorites in comments!

E.E. Burke's Best of the West featuring award-winning author Melissa Cutler

Welcome to Dulcet, Texas, home of the legendary Briscoe Ranch Resort, where one woman will discover that even love is bigger in the Lone Star State…

Celebrity wedding planner Remedy Lane is Hollywood royalty―until a scandal sends her packing to the wilds of Texas. She has a knack for leaving disaster in her wake, but she’s determined to reboot her career at Briscoe Ranch, a luxury resort known for extravagant weddings. Little does she know that weddings don’t happen at the resort without the approval of the town’s cowboy-swaggering, too-hot-for-his-own-good fire chief, Micah Garrity.

Micah knows trouble when he sees it, and all it takes is one glimpse of Remedy’s princess airs for him to know he’s met his match. Too bad he can’t stop thinking about her―even when she brings about one disaster after another at the resort. He and Remedy clash at every turn, but they can’t stop the sparks flying between them. They come from such different worlds―does love stand a chance or will this fire burn too hot for either of them to handle?

Here's an excerpt

    “How is it that you have the power to wrap every man you see around your little finger?” Micah said, nodding to the groomsmen in the distance.

    “Except you,” Remedy tossed out with a shrug.

    “I’m impervious to your feminine wiles. Unlike those half- wit groomsmen.”

    With a wry smile, she ran her hands down her dress. “Look at me. I’m unobtainable and dressed like a virgin librarian. All those guys you saw want to be the one man with the macho power to corrupt my innocence and introduce me to the world’s many wicked pleasures.”

    He laughed at the deprecating self- descriptor. Yeah, her getup was drab as hell, but still, a virgin librarian she was not. “It’s a good thing they didn’t see you prancing around in that bikini at the picnic at the river or they’d realize they’re the ones in danger of being corrupted by your wicked ways.”

    An image rolled through his mind about the way her water-slick, tanned curves had writhed and bounced as Chet and Dusty had dragged her into the river shallows and tried to teach her how to two- step. Shifting, his body turning restless, he locked his jaw and set his focus on the stars lifting up from the dark silhouettes of the hilltops.

    He could not have this woman. He had rules against that kind of fraternization for a reason.

    Her voice cut through his self-flagellation. “Are you making a crack about my virtue? Because my virtue happens to love this season’s Dolce & Gabbana swimwear collection, thank you very much.”

    That was the most ridiculous sentence he’d heard uttered outside of his TV set. He pinched the bridge of his nose against smiling, but a snort of laughter still managed to escape. Man, was she out of place in Ravel County. He flicked a glance in her direction, valiantly fighting the urge— and failing—to rake his gaze over her body. “Don’t get me started about how those itty-bitty pieces of fabric you were wearing at the river threatened to corrupt my virtue.”

    He braced himself for a witty retort or scathing commentary on the irredeemable nature of his virtue, but she didn’t take the softball pitch he’d tossed her. From the corner of his eye he watched her shoulders lift as she inhaled deeply.

    On a purr of an exhale, she smiled, triumphant. “Mmm. Chief Garrity, I love knowing how much that bothered you.”

    The huskiness in her voice stripped him of all control. Done fighting the urge to drink his fill of her, he tore his gaze from the horizon, but all he caught was her trademark sashay as she left him in her dust and walked into the tent. Whistling under his breath, he spun away from the reception and started back toward his truck. Time for him to get the hell out of California’s orbit before he lost his careful control and fell into rank with the groomsmen trailing behind her like a pack of fools.

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Buy Links:

Amazon http://amzn.to/1Wqv9bv

Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/1QqBphM

iBooks http://apple.co/1P48Kzb

Kobo http://bit.ly/1VluMCv

IndieBound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250071866

Meet Melissa

Melissa Cutler is an award winning author of sexy small town contemporary romances, western romances, and edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense for St. Martin's Press, Harlequin, Kensington Books, and Penguin. She loves to travel, but in between trips can be found enjoying San Diego's flip-flop wearing weather along with her her two fantastic--and only sometimes insufferable--teenagers. Find out more about Melissa and her books at www.melissacutler.net. 

I love hearing from readers at melissa@melissacutler.net, or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MelissaCutlerBooks ) and Twitter (@m_cutler). Visit www.melissacutler.net to learn more about me and my books…and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter: http://bit.ly/16mkpCs

E.E.: Tell us about your One and Only Texas series. What are these books about?

Melissa: I’m so excited about this series. I unofficially kicked it off last year with The Mistletoe Effect which is a long novella that features a wedding planner and a cowboy. My editor and I loved the world of the book so much that we decided to write a series based on the “behind the scenes” romantic lives of the workers at a luxury wedding resort in the hills of Texas. I consider it a modern day Dirty Dancing-style set-up, with the lives of the resort workers and the guests and the townsfolk all intertwining.

E.E.: You write several different types of books (One and Only Texas Series, hockey romances, Catcher Creek Cowboys, and romantic suspense).  Do you work on one book at a time, or are you writing several books at once?

Melissa: Well, my writing schedule is a bit more complicated than that because, typically, I write the first few chapters of a book and an in-depth synopsis, which becomes a proposal that gets pitched to my editor. Then, while the editorial staff is trying to decide whether to buy the book/series—which can take up to a few months, depending—I start working on a book that’s already under contract, picking up with the next chapter where that proposal left off. And, usually in the middle of writing that manuscript, one of my other books will come back from the editor with revision or copy edit notes, so I take a break from writing the manuscript and tackle those revisions. It’s a very fluid process and I love that I write in several different sub-genres of romance because it keeps my workdays fresh and fun.

E.E.: Is there a playlist you’d recommend for reading your latest release?

Melissa: What a great question! I do create playlists for nearly every book I write, including sometimes having specific songs attached to each character’s journey. Sometimes, the songs are only connected through mood, even when the lyrics don’t apply, and some songs are more about a single line in the song that sparks my muse.

For ONE HOT SUMMER, as you might imagine, my playlist was almost exclusively country songs. I listened to a lot of Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean, and Dierks Bently. The songs that probably sums up ONE HOT SUMMER the best, in my mind, is Randy Houser’s “How Country Feels” and Dierks Bentley’s “Riser”.

E.E.: What is your hero’s “kryptonite” – in other words, what will bring him instantly to his knees?

Melissa: Micah, the fire chief, has a MEGA hero complex that informs his every choice. He can’t resist saving the day, which makes Remedy, the heroine, even more alluring because she is a super klutz and leaves disaster in her wake wherever she goes. In that way, the two are a perfect match. As Remedy says to Micah during a moment of passion, “What’s a town hero without a little trouble to keep him in business?”

E.E.: What one thing about your hero drives his heroine crazy? And what one thing about your heroine drives her hero nuts?

Melissa: This hero and heroine are truly from different worlds. Micah is a gun-toting, toothpick chewing good ol’ boy from Texas who has a strong prejudice against the wealthy and the heroine is a rich, liberal-leaning California princess who’s the daughter of two very famous celebrities (like, if Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson had a daughter). So these two tend to drive each other crazy pretty easily.

E.E.: What’s the first thing you do when you finish writing a book?

Melissa: I love this question. I usually have a good cry, honestly. It’s like an adrenaline crash to finish a book and my body lets it all out by crying. When that’s done, I crank up some music, then head to the kitchen and rummage for chocolate.

GOTTA ASK:  What are the next five books on your ‘to be read’ pile?

GOTTA ANSWER:   My “To Be Read” pile is humongous right now. I fired up the Kindle app on my phone to check and the most recent five books I’ve purchased are “Let It Shine” by Alyssa Cole, Act Like It by Lucy Parker, 10% Happier by Dan Harris, True Pretenses by Rose Lerner, and Dirty by Megan Hart.

UP NEXT: ONE MORE TASTE, which is Book 2 in the One and Only Texas Series. That comes out this October. You can find more information on it here: 

http://amzn.to/23vpJ36

I’ve got a special treat for one lucky commenter. A prize pack consisting of one autographed surprise book from my backlist (author’s choice!), two color-changing shot glasses, a drink recipe card, and an autographed ONE HOT SUMMER cover flat. For a chance to win, please comment on this post and let me know what some of the books on your “To Be Read” list are. Good luck!

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