A Kindled Winter by Rachel L. Demeter Genres: Romance
Format: eARC
Buy the Book • Goodreads
“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.” — Dale Evans
A week before Christmas, Jeseca Reed sets off for Blue River, Oregon—her childhood home and a vault of tender memories. However, fate takes an unexpected turn when she’s left stranded in the mountains’ vast, untamed wilderness. Desperate and alone, she seeks shelter at a cottage and finds herself in the arms of a mysterious stranger.
Dr. David Drake was once a renowned cardiovascular surgeon. But a devastating tragedy has left him scarred both inside and out, unable to use his hands to operate again. For the past five years, his Blue River cottage has been his sole escape—a safe haven where he can shut out the world, bury himself in his grief, and reunite with his son’s memory.
Together they are summer and winter. Fire and ice. And yet a poignant connection forms between them. Jeseca awakens David and thaws his heart with a romance hot enough to melt snow. But before David and Jeseca can fully embrace each other, they must wade through darkness and confront the ghosts of their pasts …
Equal parts steamy and heartfelt, A Kindled Winter brings the spirit of the holidays to life with a passionate story of second chances and healing love.
A Kindled Winter reminded me a little of The Beauty and the Beast. A sad and broken man with a chip on his shoulder brought by heartbreak and loss. A Beauty who stumbled upon his path, yet sees past his icy exterior. Fighting a broken, sad past of her own, together they melt the ice with a second chance at a love they both thought impossible to ever feel again.
Dark, Passionate and Hopeful, A Kindled Winter is the perfect story to cuddle up and get warm with on a cold winters day.
David’s enchanting voice swelled the darkness, surrounding Jeseca, gripping onto her senses with a thousand beckoning fingers. They held her captive—and she readily surrendered her freedom.
“We’re like day and night. Summer and winter. Fire and ice. And yet something about you whispers my name and echoes inside me …” His mouth found her pulse point. Damp, hot lips nibbled on her skin and sent her wits reeling. “You should have never come in here. It was a mistake.”
“Then tell me to leave and I’ll go,” she replied through a breathy whisper. Her voice sounded thick with desire, hoarse … she hardly recognized it as her own. “And I don’t believe we’re complete opposites,” she said, her words husky and guttural. “I think the real you is hiding.”
Impenetrable silence took hold. Only the howling wind and David’s heavy breathing breached the quiet.
“Should I leave?”
Please, don’t send me away. Don’t shut me out.
More silence. “No. I need you … I need you to stay with me.” The words emerged from the darkness and wrapped around Jeseca’s heart with the force of a lasso.
