"Blue Moon Harbor Christmas" in Winter Wishes

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BEHIND THE SCENES

I was delighted when Kensington asked me if I’d like to contribute a novella to the annual “Fern Michaels holiday anthology.” Well, who wouldn’t be? (And how cool that the other authors turned out to be Leah Marie Brown and Jules Bennett!)

Of course I wanted to do a story that would fit in with the Blue Moon Harbor series that launched in July. All I had to do (all!) was think up that story. For me, it starts with figuring out who my heroine and hero will be. It’s a particular challenge with a novella that will only be published in an anthology, as compared to with a full-length novel. Some readers will first be exposed to my Blue Moon Harbor series by reading the antho, and some readers of the series may not want to read an antho. So I needed characters who tie into the BMH community yet aren’t intrinsic to the other books in that series.

Having already written Fly Away With Me, I knew that my next heroine (in Come Home With Me) would be Miranda. I also suspected that Iris Yakimura would need her own book (and she did, and Sail Away With Me will be an October 2018 release). That didn’t leave a lot of other choices, but Jillian Summers, the pilot who flies for Aaron Gabriel’s Blue Moon Air, came to mind. As a single parent, she seemed like an intriguing heroine with a potentially interesting story.

Which brought me back to, “and what might that story be?” There was one limitation to consider: a holiday novella generally takes place in a pretty short time frame. And of course romance readers want our “happily ever after” ending, right? It struck me that, since Christmas is a time for family and heartstring-tugging, it might be interesting to reunite Jillian and the father of her son Cole.

I conjured Michael Dhillon, and thought about his and Jillian’s backstory. College days… A time when some students knuckle down and work, but many, freshly liberated from high school and parental supervision, go a little wild. And going wild has, more than once, resulted in an unplanned pregnancy Some of those couples make a go of it, but as Jillian said at the time, she and Michael were basically hookups, not even good friends. As she put it, “That’s no foundation for building a family.”

In fact, this is a story about foundation. It’s a fitting term, because Michael’s an architect, so he definitely understands the importance of a solid foundation. And so does Cole, who’s a big fan of Legos!

A foundation is exactly what Michael, Jillian, and Cole build over the holidays. A foundation constructed out of sharing, fun, respect, liking, trust, and ultimately love. A rock-solid foundation on which to establish and grow their little family.

I hope you’ll join Jillian, Michael, and Cole for their twelve days of Christmas.