Visit with Mallory Kane, Author of “Her Secret Christmas Hero”!

HerSecretChristmasHero-300dpiTule is thrilled to be hosting Mallory Kane, author of Her Secret Christmas Hero, on the Tule Blog today! Her  brand new story is only $0.99 for a limited time and don’t forget to leave a comment to enter the giveaway! Take it away, Mallory!

In recent years, I’ve had love/hate relationship with the holidays. For me, Christmas was always about family. When I was little, we spent most Christmases at my Poppy and Mamaw’s house, my grandparents on my daddy’s side. They lived on a farm. And by farm, I mean no indoor plumbing, no telephone, no television, fireplaces and a wood stove for warmth, a barn with a very old horse and cows for milk and cream, fresh-laid eggs, snow and acres and acres of woods and fields to play in. Not to mention that the Christmas tree and wreath were always real, the decorations sparkled in the firelight, the smell of cookies and hot chocolate filled the air, the stockings were filled with oranges, peppermint candy and unshelled pecans, we popped popcorn in a wire basket in the fireplace and my grandmother made snow ice cream. Is it any wonder that my earliest memories of Christmas are magical?

Once my two younger brother were born, we began spending Christmas at home. I think my dad got tired of loading all the presents into the car. But Christmas was still magical. Mama and Daddy worked hard to make it so. Mama taught me how to make cookies and candy and Daddy stayed up late on Christmas Eve to be sure that Santa came. At our house, Santa Claus didn’t wrap the presents, he left them under the tree, all set up and ready for playing. Trains ran with the flip of a switch, toys had batteries inserted and bicycles were assembled and ready to ride.

My parents loved the movies and movie actors that were popular when they were young, so during the holidays we watched old Christmas movies. Of course there was Miracle on 34th Street, It’s A Wonderful Life, Babes in Toyland, Holiday Inn (where White Christmas was sung for the first time,) 1938’s A Christmas Carol, among many many others.

As my brothers and I grew older, got married, and my brothers had kids, our ways parted a bit, but we almost always made it back ‘home’ for Christmas, to my parents’ house, where the faces, sounds, smells, and traditions never changed. I had both my parents until 2008, for which I will forever be grateful, but the loss of my Mama in 2008 and my Daddy in 2010 was the beginning of my aforementioned love/hate relationship with Christmas.

My husband and I spend most of our Christmases with my brothers’ families, where the holidays are still wonderful and often magical. It’s very special and heartwarming to see the new traditions and memories being created. Those memories plus the memories of our irreplaceable memories our parents gave us keep me warm, cozy and forever grateful for the love and magic our parents gave us. Luckily, I’m loving Christmas again.

When I answered the call for Tule authors to write a Christmas story for this holiday season, I had no idea what I wanted to write. Soon, however, the idea of a brand new foal being the ‘baby in a manger’ on Christmas Eve took over my brain. The story began to grow and almost before I knew it, Her Secret Christmas Hero was a novella. Allie, my heroine, is baby-sitting a pregnant mare during a huge snowstorm on Christmas Eve. She has recently lost her father and is still grieving. When she rescues a man from a crashed vehicle, the two of them must trust each other in order to survive the storm and save Allie’s mare and her foal.

I very much enjoyed writing Her Secret Christmas Hero, part of the Secrets of Cherry Lake series for Tule Publishing. I hope that you find the story heartwarming and memorable.

Giveaway!

I would love to hear about your Christmas memories. If you’ll share them with me in the comments below, I’ll choose one commenter to win an electronic copy of my 2014 Christmas western historical romance, The Christmas Treasure, as well as an electronic copy of the 2015 anthology, Christmas Wishes, that contains my story, Three Christmases.

Thank you for allowing me a few moments to share my memories of Christmas. I hope you have a memorable holiday and may your Christmases always be magical.

auth_MalloryKaneBestselling romantic suspense author Mallory Kane has published 38 Harlequin Intrigues and several indie projects including two western historical romance novellas and a short contemporary romance. She comes from a long line of southern storytellers and librarians and loves hearing from her readers.

When she’s not writing, Mallory loves designing steampunk and one-of-a-kind jewelry using broken vintage pieces. She lives in East Tennessee with her husband Michael and their three cats. For more information about Mallory and her writing, visit her website at www.mallorykane.com or write her at mallory@mallorykane.com

18 Comments

  1. my favorite memory is my 16 yr olds first Christmas she was 8 month old and had quite the arm and threw a gift (stuffed barney) that she didnt like that my sister gave her and hit her in the head with it

  2. This is a long story, but I’m telling it. My most memorable childhood Christmas involves my grandmother coming to our house. I think I was about 12, and it hadn’t been that long since my granddad passed away. Anyway, my sisters were getting the “stockings” out, whispering about what was going to go in everyone’s, and my grandmother commented that she had never had a stocking. The stockings we used were my dad’s football officiating socks. And he had big feet. They were knee high, white socks called “sanitaries” and oh my gosh! so much stuff could fit in there! So my grandmother got her first stocking on Christmas day, and I think it was the only time I’d ever seen her cry. Precious grandmother. Precious memory.

  3. I don’t have great Christmas memories. in fact Christmas has always been a painful holiday for me. But I am learning to love it through everyone else’s stories and happiness. I really enjoyed your Christmas book and hearing about your memories.

  4. Having to spend my nephew’s first Christmas at my house with the rest of the family. He had no idea what was going on but he was in awe of the tree and the lights on them.

  5. best Christmas memories are of being young and trying to stay awake for Santa. Santa, of course, would come while i was sleeping, and not only bring our presents, but our tree, and the stockings! we had a small house with 7 kids plus our parents, so we had our tree up from Christmas day to New Year’s day; all from Santa.

  6. When I was young my parents would send out an elaborate Christmas photo in their cards. I remember having to stand still while they staged the pictures (holding wrapped boxes while out on the front porch, wearing Christmas pajamas while decorating the tree, etc.). I hated it at the time, but now when I run across these pictures it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

  7. Memorable for me was 1994, my mom’s last Christmas. We didn’t realize the cancer had gone to her brain until after she left the kitchen table, when we saw that, even though she was wearing a sweater, jewelry, socks, and shoes, she wasn’t wearing any pants.

    1. Delegation now works in Education Edition. I just enabled and tested it with one of my users. After delegate to someone they have to click a link to confirm and then about 20-30 minutes later the option to select the delegated mailbox shows up as a drop down where your email address is displayed at the top of the window.

  8. I loved getting the Barbie Townhouse when I was a little girl. I also loved my toy typewriter which worked–still have it, but don’t have ribbon for it.

  9. This year we are looking forward to celebrating it with our first grandchild. He is now 10 months old so we are very excited to see his reaction to all the lights and sounds. We always spend the holidays together as a family and that is what is most special

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