For a delightful Christmas, be sure to pick up A Prairie Christmas Collection. It has stories by some of our favorite authors. One of them is by Deb Raney. Circles of Blessings takes us to 1871 Dakota Territory and the campus of St. Bartholomew’s Academy. There, James Collingswood meets Stella Bradford who is in need of his services as an English tutor. Recently graduated and acting as an aid to Dr. Whitestone, Professor of English, James agrees to help Stella who sees not practicality in diagramming sentences and knowing the parts of speech. Instead of learning more about English, Stella falls in love. However, an indiscretion by James in the past threatens to undermine their relationship. Learning to forgive the past and looking to the future leads these two young people in the right direction. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and only foray into the past by Deborah Raney. She gives us characters we learn to love and a special Christmas blessing that comes full circle in her beautiful story.

Read more below about Deb’s one and only historical romance.

Deb,

M: Since you prefer not to write historical romances, what prompted you to write this one for the anthology, A Currier & Ives Christmas?

D: What prompted me was ignorance! I was invited to be part of a group proposal for A Currier & Ives Christmas, where "Circle of Blessings" originally appeared. Since I loved reading historical novels, I thought it would be a no-brainer to write one. WRONG! That's when I discovered how time-consuming the research was, and how difficult it was to get things right. I do love the way my story turned out, and it was fun writing a story based on our own family Christmas tradition. But I think I'll let this novella go down in history as my first, last and only historical!



Leave a comment to be in the drawing for a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble to purchase this delightful book for Christmas.