Two festive romances set in the glamorous Gilded Age

Two short romances

Celebrate a Gilded Age Christmas!

In Amanda McCabe’s A Convenient Winter Wedding: marrying Connor O’Neill is about survival for penniless heiress May Van Der Berg.

The distant self-made millionaire is far from the passionate husband she’d once dreamed of…except for that scorching kiss!

In Lauri Robinson’s The Railroad Baron’s Mistletoe Bride: after years of estrangement, romance blooms when Kurt invites store clerk Harper and their shared niece to spend Christmas at his mansion.

But are they just a family for the holidays? 

This is an adult 18+ story that may contain language, possible violence, and/or sexual situations geared to an adult audience.

Booksprout ARC

Title:  A Gilded Age Christmas
Series: 2 novellas
Author:  Amanda McCabe (A Convenient Winter Wedding) & Lauri Robinson (The Railroad Baron’s Mistletoe Bride)
Genre:  Historical Gilded Age Romance
Published:  October 24, 2023
Publisher:  Harlequin Historical
My Rating:  4.5

A Convenient Winter Wedding

May’s longing for something…more… can be felt in the opening pages of Amanda McCabe’s A Convenient Winter Wedding, so much so that I was instantly drawn into her story to learn more about her life and wishes for true love, not a soulless arranged marriage.  At a ball, during a daring moment of escape, May meets a man who embodies all of her wishes for a true partner who could fill that lonely, unseeable part of herself in Connor.

But, by society’s judgment, Connor is new money and will be on the fringe of their precious life-long standing.  May desires the man she discovered the night of her escape.  Connor desires to fit into her world — to present himself as “proper.”  Each longs for the one they began falling in love with during their first moments together.  Each is making what they believe to be a sacrifice of that desire and uncertainly abounds.

I was blown away by this couple’s love story.  A Convenient Winter Wedding has all the glitz, glitter, and romance of the Gilded Age.  It also has the pure basic need for someone to see us, to love us, to build a life with us exactly as we are with no compromise.  It is an amazing story, one that I highly recommend.

The Railroad Baron’s Mistletoe Bride

Harper’s fear of discovery and her terror of Kurt’s family taking her niece, Katie Jo, away from her forever is felt very clearly in the opening of Lauri Robinson’s The Railroad Baron’s Mistletoe Bride …it’s very easy to step into her shoes.  A great injustice was done to Harper’s sister, and it’s difficult even to imagine thinking rationally at that moment when she realizes that the family of the love of her sister’s life, who had abandoned both her and their baby, had found them…or at least, that was what she believed.

Add to her emotions at that moment is the fact that she has always been attracted to Kurt since their first meeting when she was working in a restaurant he frequented.  He’s back, but what will he do now that he’s found them? Such an overload of emotions for Harper.

Yet, to be fair to Kurt, he is also going through an equal overload of emotions on not only finding his (unknown to him for so long) niece but to seeing the woman he was attracted to back when they first met once again.  Add to all that is the worry over his grandfather’s illness, which had prompted his grandfather to finally tell him the total, raw truth about what really happened during the time Harper went missing from his life.  There is so much underlying tension and emotion for both Harper and Kurt that I was on pins and needles during the first part of their romance.

But, oh, Katie Jo’s love of life, of trains, of never meeting a stranger, her simple and unmatchable joy of life just rings out as clear as a church bell on a clear Sunday morning!  How I loved this child.  It is Katie Jo’s personality that makes her the true heroine of this tale.  She’ll reunite a grandfather with his granddaughter, all the while softening his heart and giving him a new lease on life.  She’ll show Harper and Kurt that it’s perfectly fine to love and accept someone exactly as they are…especially when they are so obviously right for each other.  You’ll see her other accomplishments and more.  I guarantee you’ll fall in love with this little girl as much as the couple in The Railroad Baron’s Mistletoe Bride. 

This is a story that you’ll want to dive into and let yourself be immersed in the world of a railroad baron and the road to a lifelong love for Harper and Kurt.  I absolutely had the best time ever in this story.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the author or author’s team via Booksprout, and I sincerely thank them for their trust. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

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