Staying Fit

You've got to love those romantic Hallmark and Lifetime movies, famously set in quaint small towns blanketed in festive decor, and love stories with inevitable happy endings. Watching them has become a holiday-season tradition, but, come on, we all know the book is usually better than the movie. Luckily, you can find lots of sweet and cozy holiday romance novels, including dozens of new releases in the past few months.
We've rounded up six you can snuggle up with this season, a few with slightly older characters (you don't have to be under 30 to fall in love!). Several of these authors — Jenny Hale, Teri Wilson, Nancy Naigle and Karen Schaler — have previously written books that became Hallmark Channel movies. So you may just be reading a book destined for the big screen in a year or two.

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Christmas at Fireside Cabins
Jenny Hale
Hale is the talented author behind Coming Home for Christmas and Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses, both of which became Hallmark Channel holiday movies. This season she's whisking us away on a holiday vacation with Lila Evans and her three best friends in their late 30s to Fireside Cabins in Pinewood Hills, Tennessee. This may be the last annual trip for the foursome, as jobs and boyfriends begin to pull them in different directions, but Lila is determined to enjoy it. As it turns out, that's a tall order. The shabby Fireside Cabins looks nothing like the photos suggested, and a run-in with the surly coffee shop owner in town makes it difficult to find any Christmas cheer. Despite all that, Lila finds herself wanting to help the widowed owner of Fireside Cabins save her business, and she just might have found a reason — or rather, a certain coffee shop owner — that makes her want to stick around Pinewood Hills longer than planned.
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