Coastal Magic 2025 Blogger Spotlight & Giveaway - - Tracy Solheim

USA Today bestselling author Tracy Solheim has been telling stories all her life. Growing up, her parents and teachers referred to them—rather unkindly, she might add—as “Tracy’s Tall Tales.” Fortunately for everyone, she found a way to turn those story-telling skills into a way to make money. After years of writing stodgy reports and testimony for Congress, she’s found her happy place crafting award-winning novels with shirtless men on the covers. Her fun and flirty romance books are set in small towns, locker rooms, and even the White House. She currently lives in the suburbs of Atlanta with her husband and a neurotic Labrador retriever. Her two kiddos have grown and flown, but happily for her, they didn’t go far! 

PJ, here. I had the pleasure of meeting Tracy Solheim at the beginning of her romance publishing career (good things have been known to happen when talking to strangers in elevators at romance conferences) and have enjoyed watching her success over the years. Her books always keep me eagerly turning pages, whether they're set in coastal small-town Carolina, Washington, D.C. or within a professional football team in Baltimore or Milwaukee. I enjoy them all and am delighted to host Tracy as one of 2025's Coastal Magic Convention Featured Authors. Please give her a warm welcome. 

Note: If you missed it, my review of Solheim's newest book, Take Me Home For Christmas, posted yesterday. Click here to read it.

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by Tracy Solheim

                If a Christmas movie or book doesn’t have a gingerbread house-making scene, is it really a Christmas movie or book? Gingerbread houses became synonymous with Christmas sometime during Queen Victoria’s reign. They became prominent in holiday books and movies much more recently. We authors often include them as a plot device to give our couple a way to bond. Or, my particular favorite reason, as something to compete over while their attraction grows.

Why gingerbread house-making? Because they are easy to build. Anyone can do it.

Wrong!

I remember a holiday trip my family took to The Grove Park Inn in beautiful Asheville, NC where the National Gingerbread House Competition is held every year. There were some works of art built from cookie dough and decorated with all sorts of candies, crackers, pretzels, nuts and other assorted edible items. My two young kids were inspired. The minute we arrived home, they began begging to build gingerbread houses of their own.

Unfortunately for them, they have a mother who is not crafty. But, hey, they sell those kits at the craft stores, right? I could grab a couple of kits and make a party out of it with their friends. Just think of the photos I’d get for my scrapbook.

Oh, how blissfully ignorant I was.

Have you ever tried to get a couple of preschool girls and a trio of third grade boys to assemble sheets of stale gingerbread using only a tube of frosting? Roofs cracked, icing was used as a weapon and tears were shed before I realized that these kids weren’t going to master the art of constructing these houses on their own. Time to pivot. I sent them into the other room, put on a movie and handed out snacks to keep them quiet while I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

I may not be crafty, but I can McGyver with the best of them. It was time for my trusty glue-gun to come to the rescue. I had those houses built and the seams filled with icing before the movie credits rolled. The rest of the afternoon was spent with the kids happily decorating with the assorted candy and other accoutrements. And I’ve got the sweet photos to prove it. The other moms were stunned by the talent of their little angels. They dubbed me a super mom. Little did they know. 😉

Of course there is a gingerbread house-making contest in my book Take Me Home for Christmas. And the scene wouldn’t be fun if things didn’t get out of hand. No spoilers here, except to say things get a little dogged.

As with my previous Christmas book set in Chances Inlet, there are lots of food references. I always try to mention specific foods that are special to my family at Christmastime. In the spirit of the holidays, I’m sharing one of those recipes with you today.

I’ve also got a signed copy of Take Me Home for Christmas for one of you. Comment below and tell me if you’ve ever attempted to build a gingerbread house. Or tell me a favorite food your family enjoys during Christmastime. (International winner will receive a digital copy.)

*Giveaway ends at 11:00 PM (Eastern), December 14.

(Note: Sadly, due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, the National Gingerbread Contest has been cancelled this year. The Grove Park Inn plans to host it again in 2025.)

Review - - Take Me Home for Christmas

Take Me Home for Christmas

by Tracy Solheim

Chances Inlet - Book 5

Publisher: Sun Home Productions

Release Date: December 12, 2024

Reviewed by PJ

 

In the quaint coastal town of Chances Inlet, Christmas is a time for rekindling lost connections . . .

Elinor “Elle” McAlister is on the brink of a big-time promotion that will finally put her on equal footing with her overachieving siblings. The catch? She has to babysit a notoriously prickly war reporter who’s late delivering his memoir. As if that weren’t enough, her editor banishes them both to Elle’s hometown on the Carolina coast to get the job done. Spending the holidays in Chances Inlet might have been fine—if only she hadn’t wrecked the most important relationship in her life during her visit last Christmas.

Deputy Sheriff Hayden Lovell has known Elle was his person ever since she swiped his purple crayon back in kindergarten. Through every twist and setback, her steady friendship has been his anchor, especially after he returned from combat with wounds that run deep. But everything changed last New Year’s Eve when Elle surprised him with a kiss, stirring feelings he didn’t realize he had. Now that she’s back in town and keeping her distance, Hayden wonders if that moment meant as much to her as it did to him.

Chances Inlet has a knack for bringing people together. With Christmas around the corner, can Elle and Hayden rewrite their story before the holiday spirit fades? Join them in a heartwarming tale of love, friendship, and the magic of second chances in a town that knows how to celebrate Christmas like no other.

PJ's Thoughts:

I can always count on the books in Tracy Solheim's Chances Inlet series to be brimming with a strong sense of community, quirky characters, relatable family dynamics, emotional depth, lovable animals, and heart-tugging happy endings. Take Me Home for Christmas is no exception.

I enjoy the friends-to-lovers romance trope. Throw in messy emotional baggage, a currently strained relationship, family complications, a potential new love interest (championed by his mother), and careers in different locations and you have a book that kept me flipping pages right up until the end. 

Solheim really brings these characters - as well as the town of Chances Inlet - to life. I could easily envision the noisy family gatherings and festive holiday events around town. Secondary characters add richness, humor, and texture to the story, enhancing without detracting from the main couple. I love how seamlessly family and friends weave in and out just as people do in real life. 

Elle's and Hayden's individual journeys as well as their romantic one feel authentic and relatable. I enjoyed the growth of both characters as they navigated the changing landscape both of their personal goals and dreams and their deepening feelings for one another. 

The children in this book are a particular delight, especially their relationship with the curmudgeonly author Elle's publisher has tasked her with babysitting (for lack of a better term). West (the author) has an interesting evolution of his own, one that intersects with Elle's and leads to unexpected opportunities for both of them.

Take Me Home for Christmas is the fifth book in Solheim's Chances Inlet series. Fans of the series (like me) will no doubt enjoy all the catch-up cameos by couples from earlier books while readers new to the series should be able to enjoy Elle's and Hayden's story on its own. Whichever camp you fall into, Take Me Home for Christmas delivers a sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, heartwarming tale of family, community, and finding that one person who completes you in all the right ways. 

Review - - Take Me Home for Christmas

Take Me Home for Christmas

by Miranda Liasson

The Amazing Doctors of Oak Bluff - Book 1

Publisher: Hawthorne House

Release Date: October 4, 2024

Reviewed by PJ

She invented Mr. Right...just in time for the holidays.

Every tangled web starts with one tiny white lie. The kind you spin when you're desperate.

One day I, Mia D'Angelo, third-year pediatric resident, was telling my mom that I'd finally met the perfect guy. Gushing about how amazing he was. And how happy I was.

It was all true. Until my "perfect guy," Dr. Braxton Hughes, turned out to be my co-worker and my only competitor for a spot in the best practice in town...and then suddenly I was dumped...again. But I kept going with the stories, to get her through a very tough time.

My mom's health crisis ended, and just when I thought things had settled down, my family wanted to meet my wonderful boyfriend for Christmas.

So I asked (okay, begged) just about every male I knew under forty, except of course for Brax.

Don't get me wrong. I could always count on him in a pinch. At work, that is.

Brax is an amazing pediatrician, but he would never fit the bill as a boyfriend. Maybe in looks. And charm. And his big heart. The problem is that he's the biggest commitment-phobe this side of the Mississippi.

He's the kind of guy I would definitely never take home for Christmas. There'd be no kissin' under the mistletoe, no canoodling under the tree—because my heart could not survive falling for him again.

My car is packed and I'm down to no one, when magically, there he is, duffle in hand, melt-me smile on his face.

Oh, joy.

Keeping it professional is going to be a whole lot harder than I thought. Especially when he charms my parents, my whole family, and even my dog.

And Dr. Wrong...well, he's suddenly looking awfully right.

PJ's Thoughts:

So. Many. Feelings. Miranda Liasson is an author who always takes me on an emotional journey but even in the midst of many keepers, this book stands out. It has so much heart, so many tender moments. I laughed out loud, shed  tears (both kinds), and fell head over heels in love with…well, pretty much the entire cast of characters. Okay, there are a few exceptions but everyone else. 

I want to hang out with Brax, Mia, Sam, Gage, and the rest of their hospital friends. I want to spend Christmas with Mia’s fun-loving family, join in all of their traditions, make cookies with her mom at daybreak, read The Night Before Christmas with her adorable niece, and tackle the scream-inducing sledding hill behind their house. I love the way Liasson portrays the love, support, teasing, and complications within this close-knit family that has suffered a grievous loss. I wanted to gather them all in and give them huge hugs, including Brax, who has never experienced a Christmas - or family - like the one gifted him by D’Angelos. 

Liasson tackles some tough topics in this book - including sick kids, grief, and cancer - handling them with thoughtful, hopeful, but also realistic care. It adds additional emotional layers to an already heart-tugging story and extra depth to the characters. I especially enjoyed the look forward six years into the future in the Epilogue. 

Take Me Home for Christmas launches Miranda Liasson’s The Amazing Doctors of Oak Bluff series and sets a high bar for the rest of the books. I feel like these characters have become my friends and am eagerly anticipating (hopefully) catching up with them again in book two.