Kristie Leigh Maguire participates in Cookies Book Club Annual Christmas Giveaway

The following books are available to win during the Cookie's Book Club Annual Christmas Giveaway, beginning Saturday, December 21.

Books by Kristie Leigh Maguire

Emails from the Edge: When Friendship Spans the Distance

Emails from the Edge defies today's world of political correctness where every word is carefully censored so as not to offend anyone. Kristie Leigh Maguire is open, honest, and sometimes over-the-top funny in her email correspondence with her friend back in the States with whom she shares  her thoughts and feelings while living overseas as an expatriate wife during the decade of the 90s.  Emails from the Edge, gives the reader the feeling of being a voyeur, pulling back the curtain of friendship, and finding out they are not just talking about milk and cookies. 

USA Today Bestselling Author Rebecca Forster had this to say, "A bold, honest look at how two cultures collide and lessons learned. Some may think KLM politically incorrect; I say she is courageous to share her honest feelings and inner thoughts. It is really gutsy and fascinating."

Desert Heat: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas 

Kristie Leigh Maguire presents the ultimate in ultra-sensual modern day romance. She takes you "beyond the kiss" without crossing that tenuous line between eroticism and vulgarity. Her characters are real everyday, ordinary people, not impossibly created heroes and heroines who could only be real in the pages of your average romance novel.

Don't expect the typical romance story with this novel. There are no shrinking violets or shy maiden virgins who long to be taken against their will in Desert Heat. Marcie is a savvy businesswoman who knows what she wants and is willing to go against the odds to get it.

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Counting Down to Christmas! Kristie Leigh Maguire Book Sales for the Hoidays!

Kristie Leigh Maguire Book Sales for the Holidays!

The Christmas countdown is on. Treat yourself or someone you love with the gift of a book from Kristie Leigh Maguire. No need to leave your house to take advantage of this Holiday Sale. Just go to Amazon and download the Kindle book or send it to someone on your Christmas list with Amazon's gifting feature.

Today's book from Kristie Leigh Maguire is "You've Got Mail from Japan" which is discounted from $2.99 down to only 99 cents for a limited time.

Margie and Sandy, two American expatriate women, meet and become friends while living in Saudi Arabia. After their husbands' assignments were completed, both women returned to their homes in the United States: Margie to Nevada and Sandy to Texas. Margie soon accompanies her husband on to his next assignment to Japan while Sandy remains at home surrounded by her family and friends.

Some things are very private--diaries, phone calls, letters, and emails between friends. You've Got Mail from Japan lifts that veil of privacy. This book contains actual emails exchanged between Margie and Sandy, with all the 'warts' and misspellings as they were written, on an almost daily basis over the course of a year. The writing is real and down to earth, as only emails between good friends can be.

Step into Margie and Sandy's world. Follow their incredible, somewhat quirky and offbeat journey as it actually happened. Share their times of joy, times of sadness, times of highs, and times of lows. The friendship between these two women shines from the pages and you feel as if you have eavesdropped on a private conversation, but accidentally, and then they smile at you and welcome you into their circle of friendship.

One reader stated, "I love this book! It is like I have broken into someone's computer, hacked their email, and now I am looking at all the juicy details...wow, this is fun!"

NOTE: This book is not a travel guidebook.
 
 
Friends Without Faces

Author Unknown

We sit and we type, and we stare at our screens,
We all have to wonder, what this possibly means.
With our mouse we roam, through the rooms in a maze,
Looking for something or someone, as we sit in a daze.
We chat with each other, we type all our woes,
Small groups we do form, and gang up on our foes.
We wait for somebody, to type out our name,
We want recognition, but it is always the same.
We give kisses and hugs, and sometimes flirt,
In ICQ we chat deeply, and reveal why we hurt.
We do form friendships - but - why we don't know,
But some of these friendships, will flourish and grow.
Why is it on screen, we can be so bold,
Telling our secrets, that have never been told.
Why is it we share, the thoughts in our mind,
With those we can't see, as though we were blind.
The answer is simple, it is as clear as a bell.
We all have our problems, and need someone to tell.
We can't tell "real" people, but tell someone we must,
So we turn to the puter, and to those we can trust.
Even though it is crazy, the truth still remains,
They are Friends Without Faces, and odd little names.

The Inspiring Story Behind the Song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer:

I received this story in an email newsletter that I received today. I have never heard this story before. I am sharing it with you, my readers here at Sizzling Hot Romance. Merry Christmas to everyone!

The Inspiring Story Behind the Song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer:

From a depressed widower father, to a millionaire. How did Rudolph change the life of Robert "Bob" May?
(from SocyBerty.com, Nov. 19, 2008)

As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May, 34-year old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, a father of a four-year old girl, was exhausted, broke, and about to lose his wife to cancer.

One night, Barbara, his daughter asked him, "Why isn’t mommy like everybody else’s mommy?" As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. A he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book.

Bob’s wife died in early December. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own.

Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.

He soon remarried and was blessed with good fortune and a growing family. There was more to come. His brother-in-law Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with "Here Comes Santa Claus" a few years earlier. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line "They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games" that she insisted her husband to record the tune.

Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind "White Christmas." Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards, and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents.

As the last line of the song says, "He’ll go down in history."

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Growing up in the South where it rarely snowed, it was hard to imagine a white Christmas. More often than not, we would have our windows open and the fan blowing while sweating over a hot stove preparing the turkey and dressing and all those yummy trimmings that filled the house with such delicious smells. The radio would be playing I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas while outside the sun shone on the pine trees without a hint of a snowflake anywhere in sight. We would decorate our Christmas tree with fake icicles while dreaming of snow banked up to the window sills and the sounds of sleigh bells drifting faintly through the air. By the time we gathered around the table, joining hands and bowing our heads in prayer, thoughts of a white Christmas had drifted away once again. The sun shone outside while inside the house was filled with love and joy and thankfulness at being together once again on this glorious Christmas Day!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Don't forget that books make excellent gifts. You can purchase mine online at Amazon.com without leaving your home.

Kristie Leigh Maguire, romance author