Seasons' Greetings in the Off Season by Milou Koenings

Seasons' greetings are on my mind.

Last month, we released Sweet Christmas Kisses 4, a collection of 14 sweet holiday romances. Obviously, that officially rang in the holiday season for me, even if we were still only in September!

Outside my window, the leaves outside are still turning colors and we haven't even had a really cold day yet in our hometown.  But in my mind, it's snowing in the town square, complete with hot chocolate and sleigh bells ringing, since that's what happens in the book I wrote this year for Sweet Christmas Kisses 4. (It's called The Gift of Yesterday and it releases in November. One Amazon reviewer called it If you don't want to wait that long, you can read now by getting the Sweet Christmas Kisses 4 box set, which is on sale now for only 99 cents.)

It was even stranger being in that seasonal frame of mind back in May when I was writing the book and planning my kids' summer activities.

But neither is as strange as my opposite experience last year, when I was promoting the release of my book The Kampala Peppermint Twist. Because come December, it really was the holiday season — snow and all — but here was a holiday story that had none of that.

Instead, what this Christmas tale has instead is hot weather, thunderstorms, a cruise on the Nile River and very few of the traditional seasonal accoutrements. And once the external trappings are gone, the characters are forced to look inward, deep in their hearts, to find what the season means to them.

I think this is why The Kampala Peppermint Twist, odd name, odd location and all, is still one of my favorite holiday romances that I've written. I hope that if you read it, you loved it as much as I do.

Where was the oddest place you've spent a holiday and did the unusual setting change the meaning of it for you?

But before you head off to exotic destinations, make sure to mark your calendars for the Sweet Romance Reads Xmas Party, coming to Facebook on December 6.  Fun, games and giveaways galore!

Milou Koenings is a USA Today bestselling author. She writes romance because, like chocolate, stories with a happy ending bring more joy into the world and so make it a better place.

Her other Green Pines sweet romances, I Love You Three, Reclaiming Home, The Kampala Peppermint Twist and Sweet Blizzard are available on Amazon,  Amazon.uk, iBooks, Nook, Kobo and all your favorite e-book retailers.








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