Sugar and Spice

In Fern Michaels's "The Christmas Stocking," Philadelphia businesswoman Amy Baran is determined to raise money for a new seniors' center by harvesting Christmas trees from the small-town Virginia farm she remembers from her childhood. Trouble is, Gus Moss has come home from California with his own ideas about saving the farm his father has neglected... In "The Ghost of Christmas Past" by Beverly Barton, wounded Special Ops officer Mack MacKinnon doesn't have any reason to look forward to the holidays--until he rescues pretty widow Katie Hadley from a raging blizzard. Now, in a season of miracles, he's falling as hard and fast as the Christmas Eve snow. Take two lovestruck teachers. Add a dollop of conspiring kids. Place them in a boarding school over Christmas break. And add a little help--from amateur sleuth Hannah Swensen, and you've got Joanne Fluke's "The Twelve Desserts of Christmas." In Shirley Jump's "Twelve Days," Natalie Harris can't believe it when she draws Jake Lyons as her Secret Santa pal. The dreamy hunk leaves her completely tongue-tied. But with twelve days of secret gifts, sweet notes, and steamy e-mails to go, she just may conquer her fear and discover something surprising under the tree.