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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Milou Koenings: July Book Bash Summer SALE!

What better time than summer for a Book Bash Sale! This is the season to give ourselves a little downtime — even if it's just a few minutes here and there.

Escape to small town USA and make some new friends!

You can get the first two books — in chronological order — of my Green Pines Romance series at Amazon this week for 99 cents each:

The first book to take place in Green Pines is I Love You Three. This is a full-length novel, with no cliff-hanger, to-be-continued ending (I promise!). 

A former Marine.

A single mom.

Two broken people.

Mac’s struggling to adjust to civilian life after the death in combat of his best friend. When a teaching job opens up in the small town where his friend used to work in the summers, Mac takes it as a sign and moves to Green Pines, hoping to find refuge from his demons.

For Julie, there’s no refuge from night feedings, a crazy mom, an ex-mother-in-law and an overdrawn bank account. She’s struggling to build a better life for herself and her baby and the only thing she knows is she’s not falling for any guy again.

There’s only one problem. You never know when love will knock you off your feet.

"Loved this new book by Milou Koenings. If I had to describe the story, I'd say it was like a mille-feuille French pastry ... A millions interlaced layers"

~ Kd.R

" Mac and Julie are wonderfully complex characters who have so much depth and emotion to them, I feel like I could run into them in my own town ... a story that left me with happy tears in the end. I can't wait to read the other Green Pines romances!

~ Melanie D. Snitker

On sale July 21 to 25!

Buy Now From Amazon

And chronologically next in the Green Pines series comes The Kampala Peppermint Twist. It is the series because it features recurring characters from Green Pines but, as the title and cover image suggests, our heroine finds herself far from home.  I'll tell you a secret -- I love all my books, but if I had to pick one that holds a special place in my heart, this is it. 

A twist of fate and Annie's unexpectedly on her way to Africa for Christmas. Next to her on the plane, a man in a tuxedo. What kind of guy flies in a tux? Annie's about to find out—and discover things about herself that will flip her world upside down.

A delightful, heartwarming Christmas novella.

“A beautiful story that was packed with substance, intrigue, and entertainment.”

~ Nic. S. 

Buy Now From Amazon

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.






Sign up for her newsletter, so you'll be first to know about new releases!

And don’t forget to sign up for the Sweet Romance Reads newsletter. Scroll down the right side of our blog and enter your email address under Newsletter Signup. And if you're the party type (come on, who isn't really deep down?) come join us in the Facebook Sweet Romance Reads Cafe , where every so often we have the greatest parties!

Re-Introducing ... Milou Koenings

Hi there. I'm Milou. It's re-introduce yourself month here on Sweet Romance Reads, so I'm here to share a bit about me and hope you'll all share a bit about you so we can get to know each other.

Who I am

Here's the official bio:

Milou Koenings is an award-winning USA Today bestselling author who writes romance because, like chocolate, stories with happy endings bring joy to the world and so make it a better place.

Yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't tell you much besides the fact I eat too much chocolate. What can I tell you — I'm shy.

Five Funky Facts about Me

1.  Lets start with the question I'm asked all the time. That name. It's Meeloo, accent on the Mee. Not My-lou. Although I'm so used to the latter by now that I honestly don't care either way.

The only other Milou I know is also Belgian, which is exactly what someone else recently said to me, too. So it seems I have a uniquely Belgian name. Technically, it's a contraction: Myriam Louise. But my parents were overly fond of Tintin, the cartoon character, and his dog's name is Milou.  So you can see I might have some complicated feelings about canines, being named for one...

For all you dog-lovers out there, rest assured. I do like dogs - but only the really big ones. Great Danes are my favorite. Cats? I love them black.

2.   I've lived for at least a year in 12 different countries and spent time in about 30 others.

3.  Number 2 probably explains why I am passionately in love with small towns where everyone has known each other forever.

4.  My favorite bird? Owls. I have a huge collection of them gathering dust all over my house. I keep saying I'm going to box them away, but each one reminds me of a place I visited, or a particular special day. So they stay.

5.   I always need to have a dozen projects going on at the same time. So I have multiple works in progress at any given time and I still have a day job, several in fact. But whatever it is I do, I do it from home, because that's where my heart is.

6.  As you see, math is not my forte...

Something You'd Never Guess About Me

Both my mother and my granny, my father's mother, were ladies-in-waiting.  Yes, to real queens.  One of these days, I'm going to spill the beans and write a royal romance — if they let me, which hasn't happened yet. 

Why I write sweet romance

Because, as a Harvard study discovered, investing in our relationships with lovers, family, friends and community is what keeps us happy and healthier. (We needed a 75-year-long study to tell us this?) 

So as a writer, I can't think of anything better than to write about love and kindness.

You want more dirty details?  You'll find them here on my website. 

My sweet romances — in chronological order

I don't write my Green Pines series in chronological order. They come into the world as the characters demand their own stories.  They books feature recurring characters, but each one is a stand along story.  However, if you want to read them in the order the stories happened in the universe of Green Pines, this is how they go:

A former Marine. A single mom. Two broken people.

Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iTunes

Angus & Robertson | Mondadori

A twist of fate. An overbooked flight. Christmas in Africa will flip her life upside down.

Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iTunes

Angus & Robertson | Mondadori

Covington Black knows what he wants. He wants to believe Ella’s the one, and yet it seems like falling for her is the one thing he shouldn’t have done.

Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iTunes

Angus & Robertson | Mondadori

He’s an ex-con, she’s a socialite.

He saves her life, she could make or break his; will the gift of love come in time?

Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iTunes

Angus & Robertson | Mondadori

Sign up for my newsletter, so you'll be the first to know about new releases!  

And don’t forget to sign up for the Sweet Romance Reads newsletter. Scroll down the right side of our blog and enter your email address under Newsletter Signup.

Now it's your turn.  Come join us in the Facebook Sweet Romance Reads Cafe and let's get to know each other!