Jennifer Vido: What inspired your new release, MEET ME AT CHRISTMAS? Jenny Hale: Oh goodness, after 23 novels, there’s no telling where the idea came from! Ha! I don’t even know. Sometimes I wonder if I store subconscious little messages throughout my life that reveal themselves when I start writing. I literally turn in a novel to my editor and then open a clean Word document and start writing the next book on that same day. Some books come to me well before writing them and some come when I start typing them. This one slowly emerged once my fingers hit the keys.   Jen: What brings Stella Fisher back home to Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, and how does she feel about it? Jenny: Her mother is spending her first Christmas without Stella’s father (after his death), and she’s faced with decorating alone and planning the Leiper’s Fork Christmas parade, which Stella’s father used to do. Stella feels the need to return to her mom, but she’s taken aback when her sister Lily elopes in Costa Rica instead of coming home to be with their mom.   Jen: What goes through Stella’s mind when she unexpectedly bumps into Henry Sutton? Jenny:…

Jennifer Vido: What inspired your new holiday release, THE CHRISTMAS LETTERS? Jenny Hale: I actually came up with the title first and then built the story around it. There’s something about Christmas that makes me nostalgic. I wish my grandparents were still around to share the holidays with us, so I thought it might be interesting to write a story where Nan, who’s passed on, is able to contribute to the holiday through her old letters.   Jen: Why is Elizabeth Holloway leaving her life behind in New York City to return home in the Great Smoky Mountains?  Jenny: After a rocky twelve months romantically, her boyfriend of seven years has decided that they should break up, right at Christmas. (This was the second idea that came to me after the title: what if finding her Prince Charming was the exact opposite of what she thought? Her boyfriend is uber-wealthy, buys her all the things, and they live in a penthouse in New York. A lot of times, in a romantic story, that’s the ending. What happens if it’s the beginning and it totally falls apart?)   Jen: What is Elizabeth’s first impression of Paul Dawson? Jenny: She’s emotionally and…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Jenny Hale! About: Child-wrangling, photo-taking, travel-loving romantic women’s fiction author seeks readers for her Christmas novel about single-mother Abbey Fuller, who loves her family more than anything and doesn’t regret a moment of having to put her dreams of being a designer on hold to raise her son, Max, and a quiet, workaholic hero, Nick Sinclair, who thinks he’s hiring Abbey for a small design job, only to find himself learning salsa dancing and up to his neck in Christmas festivities. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: The perfect date includes a roaring fire, plates of Christmas cookies, hot cocoa, and a book in hand… Seeks long hours spent turning pages, the only sound in the room being the Christmas carols playing softly in the background Likes sweet, family-oriented, romantic stories that will make you laugh and cry Willing to nibble candy canes while reading about cookie baking and other delicious desserts Enjoys simmering romance that will leave…