Every year, Ninestar Press puts out a bunch of holiday novellas, but I always miss some because they a) have similar covers, b) come out in the middle of a thousand other holiday stories, and c) don't get the mainstream press coverage. So this year, I asked Ninestar for their full line-up so we could make our list and check it twice. They've left behind the all-the-same-cover idea, and I counted 4 lovely seasonal backgrounds this time.

Gosh, I wish there was more of this book. I want more of these characters! But what we have is still very, very good. Tikka Chance on Me is about two people who return to their hometown for very different reasons. Pinky Grover came back home to small-town Indiana to take care of her sick mother and ended up staying well after her mom was better. She dropped out of her Ph.D. program to work at her family’s Indian restaurant (the only one for miles), and it’s nothing like the life she was living in Chicago. The only bright spot in her day is seeing local bad boy Trucker Carrigan. Trucker left Indiana and has come back to join the Eastville Eagles, the local semi-legitimate biker gang. He insists that he and his friends come to the restaurant once a week for Indian food, but his real motivation is to catch glimpses of Pinky. They’ve stayed clear of each other, limiting their interactions to sneaky glances and whispered flirting, but one chance encounter at the Walmart garden center (the sexiest part of any store) sets some steamy moments in motion.

This book. *fans self*

More mini-reviews! Two contemporary romances and a medieval this time around.

I think this is the best Young Adult f/f romance I've ever read. Yeah, that's not saying a whole lot since the market isn't exactly teeming with them, but Y'ALL. It is SO SWEET.

Yên is not important in her village. Her mother is a healer who knows magic but Yên has no powers herself; all she does is teach the village children but knowing about long-dead scholars isn’t considered important in a devasted world where everyday survival is hard enough.

Did you know that the Christmas holiday season starts before Halloween? I figure that Hallmark has done to Christmas the same sort of thing that Hollywood has done to summer (summer starts in early April if you didn’t get that memo). And with all these efforts to advance a season that can stress a fair number of us out, at least television networks have given us five billion new movies with very chaste romances to soothe our frazzled nerves.

A fantasy romance prequel novella, an M/M/F erotic romance, and a contemporary romance with a scientist lottery-winner heroine. We contain multitudes.

Anthologies always have a theme, whether it's a setting, a trope, or a cause. By giving each author a different season, the theme of the upcoming Seasons of Sorcery anthology allows four talented fantasy authors to pool their talents but retain some of the signature elements of the worlds their readers love.