Megan Montgomery

A man, a woman, a disembodied skull… What could go wrong this holiday season? Everything. Traipsing through the woods, searching for a century-old skull is just another day at the office for forensics professor, Dr. Chris Carter. But this call couldn't have come at a worse time. He’s recently been jilted by his long-term crush. It's days away from Christmas and he's spending the holidays alone. It's bone-chillingly cold, he really needs that third cup of coffee, and there’s nothing remotely interesting about this cut-and-dried case. Until his colleague’s new assistant bounces onto the crime scene. Daphne McKinnon is bubbly and gorgeous, with a keen intelligence and an eye for detail that makes her an excellent anthropologist. Their eyes linger too long inside the caution-taped perimeter. Her smile stretches wide as his thumb accidentally brushes hers over a dirt-encrusted orbital bone. It’s more than flirtation. It’s magic. When Chris and Daphne agree to transport the remains across the state to his lab, their spark ignites. Something about this woman turns the snobby, uptight, millionaire academic into a protective, feral... Daddy... who can't say no to her. Especially not when she’s urging him to right the wrongs of Christmases past, heal their childhood wounds, and make their own new, movie-worthy holiday traditions along the way. But while they’re making merry, every stop on their Christmas Eve road trip turns into one disaster after another, until one giant peppermint hot cocoa bomb threatens to blow their cozy new world apart, almost as soon as it began. They've already started planning their lives together, but their relationship might not even survive the remains of Christmas.

John and Em meet on the boardwalk as the moonlight dances off the Chesapeake Bay. She thinks he’s gorgeous and comes down with a case of instalove. He thinks she’s a panhandler and gives her five dollars. The embarrassment is enough to send Em running for a life makeover. The only problem is, she’s spent the last decade looking after everyone else in her little town and now she’s totally forgotten how to self-care. Adding to that garbage heap of a situation is tonight’s blind date. Of course it turns out to be the man who mistook her for homeless. And, of course, he’s a Navy test pilot stationed a stone’s throw away from her antiques shop. All the whiskey and chocolate in the café can’t help the awkwardness between Em and this cold and stoic modern-Mr. Darcy. Fortunately, their tiny, tight-knit community won’t let one (or two) bad nights come between what everyone knows might just be an uncannily perfect couple. When they both let down their guard, Em and John’s chemistry creates more sparks than a welder’s torch, but there’s a lot to loose if she tries—and fails—at this relationship. Unless she decides to trust John to help her navigate, Em might be stuck circling the runway in a loveless holding pattern.

Forensic anthropologist, Dr. Decca Crowley, is no stranger to death. Between traveling all over the state of Tennessee to study skeletal remains, responding to mass casualty events with her team, and sitting in bedside vigils as a death doula in her "time off," she's run herself ragged in her attempt to avoid living her own life. Putting in more hours meant not thinking about her love life. Or lack of one. Until now, it's been easy. Her good friend, Gus Smythe, has just graduated from Greek Orthodox seminary and in order to be ordained a priest, he must marry--or else serve his entire priesthood alone and celibate as a monk. For him, that's a fate distinctly worse than death. The ever-pragmatic and selfless Decca has a solution. Purely out of the goodness of her heart, she proposes a marriage-of-convenience. He needs a wife; she could definitely use someone to talk to (other than the 200 year-old skeleton she's piecing together on her dining room table.) But, she didn't really think he'd say yes. When the bride and groom catch feelings for each other, that could be the end of their cozy situation. But if they find the right framework—the bones of love—it could be their key to happiness instead.