In need of some sexy reading material to fill your e-reader? I’m here for you. Each month I will bring you an assortment of erotic pleasure reads to tempt your palate—and your credit card....

Grab your sexiest red undies and some mistletoe—December brings us a seasonal cornucopia of holiday fantasies all wrapped up in a pretty bow just waiting for you to unwrap and enjoy.

Red Hot Holiday anthology
by Anne Calhoun, K.A. Mitchell, and Leah Braemel
A super sexy sweet anthology that not only brings plenty of heat to the table, but also portrays the beautiful emotional connections made between two people who find love with one another during the often trying holiday season.

I'll be home for Christmas…to fulfill all your dreams.

This holiday, a Mountie is determined to get her man. A widow finds a fireman who ignites her passions again. And two men unsure of their commitment discover a happily ever after—and a blindfold—under their tree. No matter your desires, this collection of three shorts is bound to treat you to all the joys of the season.

“I Need You for Christmas” by Leah Braemel
“Breath on Embers” by Anne Calhoun
“Wish List” by K.A. Mitchell

Stories also available for purchase separately.

[The rest of the best...]

Christmas is upon us and we have all sent out our wish lists. But what are you hoping will be under your tree?

Christmas lights image courtesy of waferboard via Flickr.

If I could fill a Christmas basket for each of you with my favorite Christmas historical romances of 2012, I’d include a book for each day of Christmas week: four new releases and three reissues.

Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight, Grace Burrowes
I love Grace Burrowes’s large, loving Windham clan—eight siblings and parents who are as fascinating as their children. Lady Louisa’s book is the sixth in the series. It features not only a Windham heroine who is smart and different and determined to avoid matrimony (for what seems to her very good reason), but an even more unusual her—a pig-farming knight who is clearly her social inferior. Secrets abound, and the delighted reader is soon cheering for these two practical lovers to attain an HEA that is everything their poetry-loving hearts deserve. Library Journal named this book one of the best romances of 2012.

[They hero and heroine certainly sound refreshingly different...]

Want something extra naughty for the holidays? Erotic romance author Opal Carew, whose His to Command #1 releases on January 8, wrote her own version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” for the holidays (first featured at the site She Loves Hot Reads). It's written from the point of view of a reader living the events of Opal’s books—with each day of Christmas representing one of her books.

Look for more Opal Carew at H&H in the new year, including a special His to Command sneak peek you won't want to miss!

“Opal’s 'Twelve Days of Christmas'”

On the first day of Christmas,
Opal gave to me
A ménage with identical twins.

On the second day of Christmas,
Opal gave to me
Fun at a swinger’s club,
And a ménage with identical twins!

[Keeps gettin' better...]

Click here to log in or register to enter for a chance to win a fully stocked holiday stocking from Heroes and Heartbreakers!

Have we got a stuffed stocking for you! Heroes and Heartbreakers has found plenty of Christmas cheer (and heroes, and heroines, and rockin' sexytimes!) to fill a stocking so it will be hung by the chimney with plenty of care (if you know what we mean)...

We've got books for a fabulous holiday giveaway, that is. What did you think we meant?

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE DOES NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCE OF WINNING. You must be 18 or older and a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C. to enter. Promotion begins December 19, 2012, at 10 am ET, and ends December 26, 2012, 11:59 am ET. Void in Puerto Rico and wherever prohibited by law. Click here for details and official rules.

~Snowflakes image courtesy of aussiegall via Flickr~

[About the prize...]

It's probably no secret that I'm a huge Lisa Kleypas fan, so when Lisa Kleypas announced that Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor was to be adapted for television by Hallmark Hall of Fame as Christmas with Holly, I was filled with equal parts excitement and trepidation. Who doesn't want to see a favorite novel on the screen? How many of us have done fantasy casting of J.D. Robb's In Death books and how many of us think that Colin Firth was exactly the right man to play Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride & Prejudice? Then again, how many of us cringed watching Gary Oldman and Demi Moore take on The Scarlet Letter (how many of us even got to the travesty of an ending)? You get my point.

When I first saw pictures of the cast, I was a little taken aback. Yes, I'm one of those people who visualizes heroines and heroes (and heartbreakers) in my mind. And, being a woman of a certain age, I frequently visualize them as older than they probably should be. So Mark and Maggie in Christmas with Holly initially looked like babies to me. I mostly got over this, because they really did look like the right type and, when I finally saw the movie, had the necessary chemistry in spades. One obstacle disposed of.

[Onto the next...]

If I were headed for a desert island and were allowed to take only one Christmas romance, I’d take one by Carla Kelly. The problem would be choosing just one. Of course, I could take Carla Kelly’s Christmas Collection, published last year by Cedar Fort. It includes four of her novellas previously published in the Signet Regency Christmas anthologies: “The Christmas Ornament” (A Regency Christmas, 1998), probably the most light-hearted of Kelly’s stories, with an Oxford scholar as hero and a pair of matchmaking fathers; “Make a Joyful Noise” (A Regency Christmas Carol, 1997), with a hero who finds his heroine when his mother gives him the task of recruiting new voices for a choral competition; “An Object of Charity” (A Regency Christmas Present, 1999), with a ship’s captain who’s coming home to an estranged family and the niece and nephew of his first mate, killed in action, for whom the captain feels responsible; and “The Three Kings” (A Regency Christmas II, 1990), in which the hero and heroine travel through war-torn Spain.

[This doesn't even scratch the surface!...]

Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is the best holiday story ever. Perhaps that's hyperbole. But according to some experts, Dickens' work is responsible for Christmas as we know it today—as a more secular holiday celebrated with family gatherings, Christmas trees, gift giving, and philanthropy. It has even affected the way we speak. We can thank Dickens for the phrases “Merry Christmas,” “Scrooge,” and “Bah! Humbug!”

A Christmas Carol is the tale of a miserly, mean-spirited English accountant named Ebenezer Scrooge who hoards his wealth and hates Christmas. On Christmas Eve, he's visited by the ghost of his dead business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of past, present, and future Christmases. They convince him to do good works and love mankind.

Unfortunately, there is one part of A Christmas Carol that's always been a real downer, in my opinion. Scrooge could have had romantic love and a family of his own, but he alienated his fiancée Belle with his greediness. By the time he finds redemption, it's too late to reverse his past mistakes with her. That's why current romance novels that utilize the themes, characters, or plot of a Christmas Carol are such fun to read. Unlike poor Ebenezer, modern Scrooge-like heroes and heroines can find true love before it's too late.

[If they can reach out and grab it, that is...]

Sabrina Jeffries
'Twas the Night After Christmas
Gallery Books / October 30, 2012 / $11.75 print, $9.99 digital

Dear Sir,

. . . I feel I should inform you that your mother is very ill. If you wish to see her before it is too late, you should come at once.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Camilla Stuart

Pierce Waverly, the Earl of Devonmont, has led an unabashed rogue’s life, letting no woman near his heart. Inexplicably abandoned as a child to be raised by distant relatives, he never forgave his parents, refusing to read any of his mother’s letters after his father’s death. Then came a letter that shook his resolve. A Christmas visit to Montcliff might prove his last chance to discover the truth of his past, and come to terms with the stranger he calls “Mother.”

But two surprises await him at Montcliff. His mother is perfectly healthy, nowhere near a deathbed, as her meddling lady’s companion led him to believe. The second is Camilla Stuart herself, a lively vicar’s widow, too bright and beautiful not to arouse the scoundrel in Pierce. Though she alone is reason enough to prolong his stay, he is soon faced with other tantalizing riddles: What secrets lie in his mother’s past to explain his childhood abandonment? Why is the captivating Mrs. Stuart so determined to mend the breach between mother and son? Meanwhile,

Camilla herself is caught up in love’s complications since the arrival of the irresistible earl. As his bold flirtation and suggestive whispers draw her dangerously close, can anything protect her vulnerable heart? If they are destined to share real happiness, there must be honesty between them—yet telling him the truth about her own life may shatter that chance.

None of them can predict the startling revelations to come. Or the secrets, both heartening and shocking, divulged between a mother and son, and between two lovers haunted by their respective pasts, that will make Christmas night at Montcliff one to remember—and the glorious night after, one to treasure for a lifetime.

'Twas the Night After Christmas is classic Sabrina Jeffries: rakes, good girls, family misunderstandings, and a heart-warming denouement. The perfect Christmas fare.

[Rakes and good girls! Fun ahead!...]

I’ve recently begun trying to read all of Mary Balogh traditional Regencies that I missed when I first glommed the author. I have a particular fondness for Christmas Regencies, at least Balogh’s, so Christmas Beau was an obvious choice to start.

The plot is simple: It’s a revenge story that turns on the person seeking revenge. The hero, Max, was a perfect gentleman while he was engaged to Judith, but his reserve made her frightened of him, and she rejected him in favor of Andrew Easton. That turns out to be a big mistake. Andrew is false to her on many levels, and when he dies, Judith is a much more wary woman.

She travels to London with her two children and her beloved sister-in-law, who has a romance in the secondary plot. She rejoins society and Max finds her there, seeking out both her and her family for particular attention. Judith is ashamed of how she treated him—she sent her father to break the engagement —and senses he’s still angry with her. But her family love his attentions, however, and he invites them all to a country house party at his estate. She suppresses her misgivings and attends.

[Always trust your instincts...]

The success of Love Actually is the movie that started the romantic vignette comedy trend—since then we’ve had Valentine’s Day, He’s Just Not That Into You, and New Year’s Eve.

Love Actually is by far the best: London, Christmas, lots of beautiful white people, hormones, and copious amounts of eggnog can really get the Yuletide cheer going. And with a cast like this, how can you go wrong? Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Alan Rickman, Billy Bob Thornton, Rowan Atkinson, January Jones, Claudia Schiffer, Shannon Elizabeth, and even Denise Richards.

[Brits do it best...]

Natasha and Tori have offered their Steampunk Holiday Gift Guide and their Werewolf Holiday Gift Guide; now they turn their thoughts to what to get people who like their heroes tall, dark, and undead: Vampires.

Tori: Nat and I have toiled and slaved countless hours looking for the perfect gifts to make your holiday shopping easier. Vampires are a special breed and their fans deserve a little extra special “bite” to their gifts.

Tori: This pewter coffin ring screams “take me!!!“ Ok, maybe it just screams that to me. Either way, any self-respecting vampire lover will be screaming if they open this on Christmas Day.

[Sink your teeth into more ideas...]

Whether your vision of the perfect Christmas is “city sidewalks, busy sidewalks/dressed in holiday style” or “Christmas in the country/like another time and place,” chances are you can find your preferred image in a Christmas romance.

NoveList offers 764 titles categorized under the phrase “Christmas romance,” and I suspect that list is far from complete. My personal preference is for Christmas in a small town: The parade that the whole town turns out to see, the Christmas pageant with a freckled angel, the Santa plate with Miss Eunice’s special chocolate rum balls—these have the comfort of the familiar and cherished for me. And seeing love work miracles of healing and reconciliation makes the story perfect.

I have loved my Christmas visits to many small towns. I think of Destiny, Ohio; Valentine, Oklahoma; Twilight, Texas; Eternity Springs, Colorado; and Misty Harbor, Maine fondly, but I do have favorites. Here are my top three small towns at Christmas.

[Did your favorite make the list?...]

We have another list of holiday gifts for you! This time we’re finding gift for the werewolf in your life. From hair removal to kick-ass high heels, we have you covered this holiday season.

Natasha: Of course you have to give your werewolf the perfect gag gift, and this is just perfectly snarky.

Tori: *snicker* When you care enough to make fun of them. I think Patricia Briggs’s Adam would need an XXXXXXL.

Natasha: If you love your werewolf, and money isn’t an object, you can get them the world’s most expensive shaver. Seriously. They’d appreciate it.

Tori: For that price, it should shave you, give you a mani/pedi, and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. I’d buy one for Wolverine if he’d let me *ahem* help.

[Still stumped? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet...]

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Check our Sweepstakes page for more offers!

Click here to log in or register for a chance to win!

NO PURCHASE NESSECARY. Purchase does not increase your chance of winning. You must be 18 or older and a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C. to enter. Promotion begins December 13, 2011, at 12:00 pm ET, and ends December 19, 2011, 11:59 am ET. Void in Puerto Rico and wherever prohibited by law. Click here for details and official rules.

[About the book...]

Dear Santa,

Hi, Santa. It’s Chelsea. I’m pretty sure you and I are on the same wavelength and agree that reading very sexy books should not put one on the naughty list. In fact, recommending quality reads to my book-loving friends should bolster my nice-ness. Right?

As such, I’m sending over my wishlist. I’m anxiously awaiting so many new books and fret over what may come in them. Please take my suggestions to heart and then use some Christmas magic to tinker with plotlines as needed. Thank you. Also, I will make you extra yummy cookies.

I want…

[Make your list and check it twice...]

I’m no cynic during any season, but Christmas, a holiday that is steeped in faith, family, and tradition for me, brings out the sentimentalist that I work at keeping under control, with varying degrees of success, the rest of the year. Small surprise that my favorite Christmas romances are as rich in appeals to the tender emotions as Christmas kitchens are in smells of cinnamon and chocolate. Some of the category lines are perfect for my taste.

I don’t know when Harlequin began publishing Christmas romances. I remember only anthologies and occasional gems before 1989. That December, however, the company published four novels in their Harlequin American Romance Christmas Is for Kids promotion: A Carol Christmas by Muriel Jensen; Mrs. Scrooge by Barbara Bretton: Dear Santa by Margaret St. George; and The Best Gift of All by Andrea Davidson. I loved all four of them, and from that year I actively searched for Christmas stories in all the category lines. One of the Christmas Is for Kids books became #1 on my list of all-time favorite category Christmas novels, but there are others that are also a lot like my favorite Christmas movies—a bit schmaltzy but essentially heartwarming and guaranteed to leave me feeling good.

[More pick-me-up holiday recs this way...]