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It’s a pleasure to welcome the talented, bestselling author Peggy Webb to my blog today! Readers, she’s treating us to a guest post, a recipe, and previews of two wonderfully romantic books just in time for the holidays!

A few years ago, I decided to simplify Christmas. I made the holidays about understanding the deeper meaning of the season and celebrating the love of family and friends instead of the trappings. For too many years I’d been swamped by an avalanche of decorating, special baking, parties, shopping and gift wrapping.

Because my children and grandchildren live in far-flung places – Florida and New Hampshire – and I obviously can’t be both places at one time, Christmas also meant many treks to the post office to mail gifts that might not fit, couldn’t be swapped and might not suit in the first place.

For the past few years, Christmas in New Hampshire has been the second week in November. Armed with sweat pants and sleep socks to ward off the chill (I consider any state north of the Mason-Dixon line to be bitterly cold in winter), I board the plane alone in Memphis and walk into the arms of my daughter, my son-in-law, and three of my beautiful grandchildren in NH.

“Christmas with Gigi” (my grandchildren’s name for me) means special time spent together making sausage balls and Mayan hot chocolate from scratch (recipe below), trekking the mall arm and in arm until we find the perfect gift, racing home with my nine-year-old grandson to “drive” the Mario Kart on his new Wii, taking my teenaged granddaughters out to dinner and hearing their hopes and dreams, walking with them to piano and voice lessons, gathering around the piano and singing with them, going to their church’s wonderful Giving Fair, where money for gifts purchased is also a donation to a charity.

Christmas with my son, my daughter-in-law, my teenaged grandson, David, and my granddog, Blaze, typically means a leisurely drive to Florida somewhere in the ballpark of December 25th for a very laid-back holiday filled with love, laughter and lots of good eating. Both my children are wonderful cooks, so I get to sit back with a cup of coffee and wait to see what wonderful treats they’ll put on the table.

My daughter-in-law and I will have “girl time” getting our toenails done. My son and I will laugh uproariously over a Pink Panther or a Monty Python re-run, and my grandson will take me into the backyard to try to teach me how to hit the bull’s eye with one of his Airsoft guns. I’m a better shot than you might think! 😉

For me, Christmas is love.

In that spirit, I wrote Christmas in Time so I could offer it as a gift to my fans for the holidays. This time travel novella, now FREE, is a prequel to one of my romance classics, Only Yesterday. Both are now available as e-books at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Smashwords.

Since May I’ve been bringing my Loveswept backlist to you again as e-books. Except for scaling back some of the love scenes, I’m leaving these classic romances, written between 1985 and 1997, in their original form. I hope you are enjoying them the way you would a beloved film classic. The only book I’ve significantly changed is Where Dolphins Go. The 2011 version reflects the screenplay I wrote when this book was optioned for film.

Currently, I’m getting the five Donovan romance classics ready for e-publication in the spring. I wrote more than 30 Loveswepts. Do you have favorites you’d like to see again in e-format? Do you have a favorite way to celebrate the holidays? Do you have cherished holiday traditions?

As promised, here’s the Mayan chocolate recipe: Melt three squares of Lindt Chili Dark Chocolate in one t. of water over low heat. Stirring constantly, add a sprinkle of cinnamon, an extra dash of red pepper (optional) and either sugar or Splenda to taste. When the chocolate is melted, slowly add approximately six ounces of 2 per cent milk. Stir constantly till the milk has heated through. Do not let it boil. Pour into your favorite mug, grab Christmas in Time and enjoy!

Now for a peek at the books! First, the prequel novella, Christmas in Time:

Everybody in her family and in the Gulf Coast town of Fairhope views Gilly as a woman whose life is plain and simple, one who has been content to spoil her great-niece Ann while living out her days in Windchime House. Only her best friend Margaret knows the heroic story of Gilly Debeau.

When Ann’s Christmas gift of wind chimes catapults Gilly back in time, she finds herself seated at the café Parisiene, having tea with her Papa and enjoying her eighteenth birthday gift – return passage to America on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. As the string quintet entertains the passengers, Gilly can’t take her eyes off the handsome, talented violinist from West Yorkshire.

Under William’s spell, she falls for both the music and the musician. But does an over-protected, unsophisticated girl from Alabama dare defy convention in order to become a woman? And how will she ever explain to Papa that she is planning a future with a man she’s known only three days?

On April 14, 1912, Gilly is wrenched away from everything and everyone she loves. Can she survive the icy Atlantic? Can William? Can their love survive a lifetime and beyond?

And now Peggy’s classic novel, Only Yesterday:

Ann Debeau has her life all mapped out – live in New York, sell her pottery at a nearby art gallery, and marry Rob, a successful lawyer who has never made her toes curl under. “The man you love will make your toes curl under,”Aunt Gilly had told her. Still, Rob is reliable and kind and he loves her. What more could Ann want?

When Aunt Gilly dies and Ann returns to Fairhope to close Windchime house, every notion she’d had about her past and her future is turned upside down. A few days into her visit, Hurricane Bethany slams into the Alabama Gulf Coast, leaving Anna trapped in the attic.

Her rescuer, Colt Butler, not only makes her toes curl under but bears a striking resemblance to an old photograph in her grandmother’s trunk. The sexy polo player whose sense of humor matches his sense of daring, even starts having the same dreams as Ann. But are the dreams something more? Are Ann and Colt lovers lost in time, destined to find each again?

Don’t they both sound fabulous – and just in time for holiday reading! Be sure to pick up your FREE copy of Christmas in Time right away at Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords. And find Only Yesterday for only $2.99 at Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords too!

Author Bio: Peggy Webb is the author of 70 books, 200 magazine humor columns, and two screenplays. She began her career in 1985 with Taming Maggie, a book that took the number one spot on romance bestseller lists. After almost sixty novels in the romance genre, Peggy turned her talent to mysteries with the laugh-out-loud Southern Cousins series.

In May of 2011, she took the pen name Anna Michaels for a literary fiction debut Pat Conroy calls “astonishing.” The Tender Mercy of Roses (Simon & Schuster, New York) was a Doubleday Book Club and Literary Guild Selection and a Top Five Pick of Delta Magazine.

A former adjunct instructor of writing at Mississippi State University, Peggy frequently tops the bestseller lists and has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Romantic Times Pioneer Award for forging the way for the sub-genre of romantic comedy.

Peggy is currently writing her fifth Southern Cousins Mystery, Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse, and her second Anna Michaels literary thriller. She is also bringing her romance classics backlist to fans as e-books. Follow her on Facebook, and visit her www.PeggyWebb.com and www.AnnaMichaels.net.

Again, a great big thank you to Peggy!

Live the adventure!