When Shannon Duffy came to Northbridge, Montana, to meet her newfound brother, she didn't expect to also find the man of her dreams—wearing a Santa suit no less! But though Dag McKendrick was irresistible, the newly disengaged Shannon had to at least try to resist him. She'd learned the dangers of falling fast…. For Dag, courting Shannon was an obvious no-no—especially since the ex-pro hockey player had been burned in the romantic rink before. Would he cave in to the temptation of finding out if Shannon was naughty or nice—just in time for Christmas?

In partnership with the University of South Carolina Press, the Simms Initiatives at the University of South Carolina Libraries reissues authoritative editions of out-of-print works by William Gilmore Simms, antebellum South Carolinas preeminent man of letters. Each volume has a new critical introduction and a biographical overview.

Assignment: A Hot Holiday Affair! Aspiring-jewellery designer Rose Lawson doesn't want a bodyguard. Especially the hot, muscle-y one her father hires after a break-in at the jewellery shop where she works. It's only when her home is also ransacked that Rose realises the sexy (but infuriating) bodyguard might come in handy...especially on a cold winter's night. Max Ridgeway is a former Aussie cop who's got something to prove in New York. He's convinced that someone dangerous is behind the robberies and that Rose needs protection. His protection. But what's even more dangerous is the sexy tension between them — because a hot little fling could compromise their lives...and his heart.

It's a white Christmas in Rust Creek Falls--and USA TODAY bestselling author Victoria Pade weaves the perfect holiday romance between a single dad and the soon-to-be-mom he just can't resist! RUST CREEK RAMBLINGS Rejoice, ye merry Mavericks! As Christmas approaches, we here at The Rust Creek Falls Rambler thought we'd reward our devoted followers with a blind item guaranteed to put a little extra jingle in your stockings. Which rugged Rust Creek Traub has been spotted canoodling with a very pregnant lady of the Crawford kind? Astute readers will guess we're talking about divorced rancher Dallas Traub, who rescued expectant shopkeeper Nina Crawford from a snowy car wreck a few weeks back. Can these holiday honeys survive feuding families, three boisterous boys and a little bundle of joy intent on an early arrival? Only Santa knows for sure. . .and he might just be bringing the gift of love down the chimney this year!

Katherine Snyder's study explores the significance of the bachelor narrator, a prevalent but little-recognised figure in premodernist and modernist fiction by male authors, including Hawthorne, James, Conrad, Ford and Fitzgerald. Snyder demonstrates that bachelors functioned in cultural and literary discourse as threshold figures who, by crossing the shifting, permeable boundaries of bourgeois domesticity, highlighted the limits of conventional masculinity. The very marginality of the figure, Snyder argues, effects a critique of gendered norms of manhood, while the symbolic function of marriage as a means of plot resolution is also made more complex by the presence of the single man. Bachelor figures made, moreover, an ideal narrative device for male authors who themselves occupied vexed cultural positions. By attending to the gendered identities and relations at issue in these narratives, Snyder's study discloses the aesthetic and political underpinnings of the traditional canon of English and American male modernism.

Christmas with his real family... And his fake fianceé!

Three lonely people, three lives at crossroads, three people who are about to discover that Christmas is a time when anything is possible and when wishes can come true.

On an icy December night, three puppies are rescued from the side of the road and taken to an animal shelter. Ruff and Tuff have a plan to ensure that their sister, Penny, finds a home for Christmas, even if they can't. But with the help of an older dog named Brownie, the puppies learn the true meaning of Christmas...and find a home for all four of them just in time.

'Tis the season for finding romance in this hilarious and uplifting holiday read When it comes to relationships, thirty-four-year-old Kate Turner is ready to say "Bah, humbug." The sleepy town of Blexford, England, isn't exactly brimming with prospects, and anyway, Kate's found fulfillment in her career as a designer, and in her delicious side job baking for her old friend Matt's neighborhood café. But then her best friend signs her up for a dating agency that promises to help singles find love before the holidays. Twenty-three days until Christmas. Twelve dates with twelve different men. The odds must finally be in her favor . . . right? Yet with each new date more disastrous than the one before--and the whole town keeping tabs on her misadventures--Kate must remind herself that sometimes love, like mistletoe, shows up where it's least expected. And maybe, just maybe, it's been right under her nose all along. . . .