She brings the sparkle. He’d rather avoid it. Christmas has other plans.

Poppy Matthews loves Christmas in Evergreen Falls—the twinkling lights, the fresh-cut evergreens, and even the glitter. What she doesn’t love is directing the church Christmas pageant. Again. Between running her flower shop, wrangling fifteen overexcited children, and keeping a cardboard camel upright, Poppy has more than enough on her plate.

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Then Seth Collins walks in.

 

Quiet, capable, and decidedly lacking in Christmas cheer, Seth only intended to drop off his eight-year-old niece. Instead, he finds himself recruited to repair the pageant set—and spending far more time with its relentlessly cheerful director than he planned.

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As rehearsals, gingerbread bribes, and one unfortunate glitter incident bring them closer, Poppy begins to suspect there’s more beneath Seth’s gruff exterior. But Seth has already lost someone he loved, and letting Poppy into his carefully guarded life means risking a kind of loss he’s not sure he could survive again.

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This Christmas, amid the lights and laughter of Evergreen Falls, Poppy and Seth will have to decide whether protecting their hearts is worth missing the love that could make them whole.