Christmas in Rose Bend

August 30, 2021
Simone returns (after The Road to Rose Bend) to Rose Bend, Mass., for an endearing holiday romance pairing an ER nurse who’s mourning her late parents with a carpenter who’s recovering from heartbreak and grieving the death of his best friend. Nessa Hunt agrees to a Christmas trip to Rose Bend hoping to connect with her 12-year-old half-sister, Ivy, whose mother died when Ivy was a baby and over whom Nessa has assumed legal guardianship following their father’s death. But Nessa’s carrying a heavy secret from her own mother’s deathbed: the man who raised them both was not Nessa’s biological father. Nessa dreads the holidays, and festive Rose Bend does nothing to improve her mood—a situation exacerbated when she crashes into the attractive Wolf Dennison while checking into the Kinsale Inn. This collision becomes a metaphor for their relationship as the two get repeatedly thrown together by small-town life. Nessa’s not looking for love and she’s determined to evade both Wolf and the town’s innumerable holiday events—but Ivy’s enthusiasm and Wolf’s magnetism eventually change her tune. Simone masterfully balances heart and heat, giving Nessa’s and Wolf’s grief the weight it deserves while building a convincing slow-burning romance. Readers will grow a soft spot for this quaint town. Agent: Rachel Brooks, Bookends.

October 1, 2021
Grief and healing take center stage in this contemporary Christmas romance set in a quaint Massachusetts town. For Boston emergency room nurse Nessa Hunt, the hits don't seem to stop coming. Six weeks earlier, her father, Isaac, died of cancer, leaving her the guardian of her 12-year-old half sister, Ivy, a young girl she barely knows given how little her dad wanted to do with her after having gotten divorced from her mother years ago. And six months before Isaac's death, Nessa's mother confessed on her deathbed that Isaac wasn't really her father at all. It's a secret that eats at her, especially as she fulfills Isaac's last wish that she and Ivy spend the holidays together in Rose Bend. The trip starts poorly, as Ivy acts out in grief and the pair hits traffic, making them late to their check-in at the Kinsale Inn. Upon arrival, Nessa literally walks into Wolfgang Dennison, the innkeeper's son, and their attraction is immediate. Wolf has his own trauma, having lost a friend in combat and spent significant time in a military hospital; now he's dealing with the return of his former fiancee, Olivia, after she broke off their engagement. As in many small-town romances, Nessa and Wolf are repeatedly thrown together amid the Christmas festivities. Nessa's grief at times feels overwhelming: She's lost both of her parents within a year and been saddled with a preteen she feels woefully unprepared to raise. It doesn't help that she has to face Olivia as a romantic rival. Though this romance packs in plenty of charming wintry scenes and holiday cheer, the characters' emotional weight and their slow-burn romance keep the plot from feeling too sugary sweet. A festive romance that packs an emotional punch.

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November 30, 2021
In the second titles in her Rose Bend series, following The Road to Rose Bend (2021), Simone returns to the small, charming Massachusetts town of Rose Bend, the close-knit Dennison family, and their Kinsale Inn. A panic attack puts ER nurse Nessa Hunt on an enforced medical leave. Her mother's deathbed revelation of Nessa's true parentage and Nessa's experience of holiday tragedies in the ER have soured her on Christmas. Now she arrives in Rose Bend in time for holiday festivities as she spends a month with her rebellious, resentful 12-year-old stepsister, because her stepfather decreed in his will that they must bond. Expert carpenter Wolf Dennison has been betrayed in love by his best friend. He is also torn up by guilt over another close friend he couldn't save in war. Nessa and Wolf are two wounded souls coming together. Simone demonstrates her signature characterization of complex, marginalized people who heal together and fall in love. But a little less hyperbole, fewer pop-culture references, and deeper emotional analysis would've made for a more powerful book.

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