Debbie Macomber: Glad Tidings: There's Something About Christmas / Here Comes Trouble

December 2012

Dear Friends,

You’re going to require two things to enjoy this holiday volume.

1. A sense of humor.

2. An open mind when it comes to fruitcake.

As it happens, I love fruitcake, and because I do, I’m sharing three special fruitcake recipes with you in the first story, “There’s Something About Christmas.” One comes from my mother-in-law, Marie Macomber; it started out as an applesauce cake that I adapted over the years into a moist fruitcake. (The rum certainly doesn’t hurt!) The others are from two readers, Cindy Thornlow and Penny Raven, who have become friends of mine.

The second story in this set, “Here Comes Trouble,” is a romantic comedy I wrote in the early 1990s. It’s long been a favorite of mine. You’ll see that I’ve updated it a little…. I hope that, just like Maryanne and me, you’ll fall in love with Nolan.

Both stories feature heroines who work for newspapers.

The title, Glad Tidings , refers to that and, of course, to the good news of Christmas.

My wish is that these stories will make you laugh. If you enjoy them as much as I hope, please consider your laughter my gift to you this Christmas.

P.S. I love to hear from readers! You can reach me at www.DebbieMacomber.com or Facebook, or if you prefer to write me personally my mailing address is P.O. Box 1458,

Port Orchard, WA 98366.

There’s Something About Christmas is “a tale of romance in the lives of ordinary people, with a message that life is like a fruitcake: full of unexpected delights.”

—Publishers Weekly

“No one pens a Christmas story like Macomber and this is one of her best. Sweet, witty and supremely heartfelt, it’s truly special and guaranteed to warm even Scrooge’s heart.”

—RT Book Reviews

on There’s Something About Christmas , 4½ stars, Top Pick

“ There’s Something About Christmas is a wonderfully funny, and at times heart-wrenching story of finding the right person to love at the most delightful time of year.”

—Times Record News , Wichita Falls, TX

“Macomber once again demonstrates her impressive skills with characterization and her flair for humor.”

—RT Book Reviews on When Christmas Comes

“ Call Me Mrs. Miracle is an entertaining holiday story that will surely touch the heart…. Best of all, readers will rediscover the magic of Christmas.”

—Bookreporter.com

“A fast, frothy fantasy for those looking to add some romance to their holidays.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Snow Bride

“ Where Angels Go … should definitely get anyone in the mood for holiday cheer and warmth.”

—FreshFiction.com

“Macomber’s latest charming contemporary Christmas romance is a sweetly satisfying, gently humorous story that celebrates the joy and love of the holiday season.”

—Booklist on Christmas Letters

“It’s just not Christmas without a Debbie Macomber story.”

—Armchair Interviews

Make time for friends. Make time forDebbie Macomber .

CEDAR COVE

16 Lighthouse Road

204 Rosewood Lane

311 Pelican Court

44 Cranberry Point

50 Harbor Street

6 Rainier Drive

74 Seaside Avenue

8 Sandpiper Way

92 Pacific Boulevard

1022 Evergreen Place

1105 Yakima Street

1225 Christmas Tree Lane

BLOSSOM STREET

The Shop on Blossom Street

A Good Yarn

Susannah’s Garden

(previously published as Old Boyfriends)

Back on Blossom Street

(previously published as Wednesdays at Four)

Twenty Wishes

Summer on Blossom Street

Hannah’s List

A Turn in the Road

Thursdays at Eight

Christmas in Seattle

Falling for Christmas

A Mother’s Gift

Angels at Christmas

A Mother’s Wish

A Merry Little Christmas

The Manning Sisters

The Manning Brides

The Manning Grooms

Summer in Orchard Valley

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Emma Ingram (the real Emma) and her mother

On that cold day I was born, in February 1955, my great-aunt gave me a classic fruitcake for the celebration of the occasion of my birth. Every year during the holidays I pull it out of the attic and take a look at it and it still looks great, and every year I try to get up the nerve to take a slice and try it.

—Dean Fearing,

chef of The Mansion on Turtle Creek

This job was going to kill her yet.

Emma Collins stared at the daredevil pilot who was urging her toward his plane. She’d come to Thun Field to drum up advertising dollars for her employer, The Puyallup Examiner , and wasn’t interested in taking a spin around southeast Puget Sound.

“Thank you, but no,” she insisted for the third time. Oliver Hamilton seemed to have a hearing problem. However, Emma was doing her best to maintain a professional facade, despite her pounding heart. No way would she go for a ride with Flyboy.

The truth was, Emma was terrified of flying. Okay, she white-knuckled it in a Boeing 747, but nothing on God’s green earth would get her inside a small plane with this man—and his dog. Oliver Hamilton had a devil-may-care glint in his dark blue eyes and wore a distressed brown leather jacket that resembled something a World War Two bomber pilot might wear. All he needed was the white scarf. She suspected that if he ever got her in the air, he’d start making loops and circles with the express purpose of frightening her to death. He looked just the type.

Placing the advertising-rate sheet on his desk, she turned resolutely away from the window and the sight of Hamilton’s little bitty plane—a Cessna Caravan 675, he’d called it. “As I was explaining earlier, The Examiner has a circulation of over forty-five thousand. As you’ll see—” she gestured at the sheet “—we have special introductory rates in December. We serve four communities and, dollar for advertising dollar, you can’t do better than what we’re offering.”

“Yes, yes, I understand all that,” Oliver Hamilton said, stepping around his desk. “Now, what I can offer you is the experience of a lifetime …”

Instinctively Emma backed away. She had an aversion to attractive men whose promises slid so easily off their tongues. Her father had been one of them. He’d flitted in and out of her life during her childhood and teen years. Every so often, he’d arrived bearing gifts and making promises, none of which he’d kept. Still, her mother had loved Bret Collins until the end. Pamela had died after a brief illness when Emma was a sophomore at the University of Oregon. To his credit, her father had paid her college expenses, but Emma refused to have anything to do with him. She was on her own in the world and determined to make a success of her career as a journalist. When she’d hired on at The Examiner earlier that year, she hadn’t objected to starting at the bottom. She’d expected that. What she hadn’t expected was spending half her time trying to sell advertising.

The Examiner was a family-owned business, one of a vanishing breed. The newspaper had been in the Berwald family for three generations. Walt Berwald II had held on through the corporate buyouts and survived the competition from the big-city newspapers coming out of Tacoma and Seattle. It hadn’t been easy. Now his thirty-year-old son had taken over after his father’s recent heart attack. Walt the third, the new editor-in-chief, was doing everything he could to keep the newspaper financially solvent, which Emma knew was a challenge.