Last year’s Christmas offering was a Christmas novella from my Welwyn Marriage Wager series for Dragonblade Publishing, titled Yule Be Mine.

Blurb:

‘Tis the season for love—no matter how much mistletoe it takes!

It’s Christmas time and Ulysses “Yule” Quartermain is unenthusiastically looking for a bride when Penelope St. Clare, the little sister of his boyhood friend, makes an appearance at a Christmas party. But it’s been ten years since he’s seen her. Penelope is no longer a child but a ravishing beauty, who’s turning heads everywhere she goes. And much to his discomfort, Yule is not immune to the charms of the little girl next door. But he’s working on it.

Penelope has wanted to marry Ulysses Quartermain for most of her life. Now she’s on the brink of her come out Season–a desirable young lady with wit and determination–and her happy ever after is within her grasp. If only she can make Yule see that she’s grown up and would make him the perfect wife, it’ll be the best present she’ll ever get.

The reason this series is so personal for me is all the heroes are named after my uncles–their middle names, at least–as an homage to my father and his brothers. The hero of Yule Be Mine, is named for my father’s oldest brother, Ivan Ulysses. So my hero is Ulysses Quartermain, the grandson of the Duke of Welwyn, but everyone calls him Yule. Which made for a perfect title, given that the novella takes place at Christmas.

I also have to admit that I named my heroine Penelope on purpose, because with a hero named Ulysses, his true love just has to be Penelope after the couple in Homer’s The Odyssey. And the fact that they’ve been parted for ten years (not because of war, but because her family’s been in Ireland) mirrors the ancient Greek poem as well, although in my version it’s Penelope who returns and works to win Yule.

But the book is filled with as much Christmas cheer I could put in there, because it’s set in Victorian times and unlike the Regency period, the Victorians did Christmas to the hilt. There’s a Christmas house party, lots of greenery–including tons of mistletoe, Christmas party games, a thrilling outdoor game called the Mistletoe Run that ends with a scandalous kiss, a Christmas pantomime in London, and decorating the Christmas tree.

If you’d like to indulge in a very romantic Victorian Christmas that would do Charles Dickens proud, grab a copy of  Yule Be Mine from Amazon or read it for free on KU.

And if you’d like even more Christmas romance, check out this website where Yule Be Mine is being featured! There’s never enough historical Christmas romances, are there?