This HaBO comes from Aly, who is hoping to find this romance:
I cross-posted this on r/whatsthatbook as well but I’m just hoping to find an answer! I remember reading this book while I was in junior high or high school, so about 2008-2012. I don’t believe it was terribly old at that time but I can’t be sure because my friend and I used to borrow from her grandma’s romance stash. Her grandma worked at a Walmart at the time and was always bringing new books home from the small book section.
Here’s what I remember from the book:
– It was a paperback, written in English. The setting was in England, I believe in the 1800s, so it was probably a Regency or Victorian romance
– I remember the overall story but not all of the minutiae – man kidnaps woman in some kind of revenge plot. I think he had just inherited a title but needed money and/or wanted revenge. I think the revenge was actually on his own uncle? The two of them spend a lot of time in a carriage or on their own so there weren’t many other characters to remember.
– Most of what I remember comes later in the novel. The couple eventually gets married and is holed up somewhere during a snowstorm (during/after Christmas, I think) and the man carves something for her out of wood (I think it was a nativity scene or figures) since it’s their first whatever-holiday and he can’t just go out and buy her something. (I underlined that part because no matter the other details, this is what I remember the most vividly.)
– I believe the lady ends up in a carriage accident right before the book concludes. I also think the man’s name/title/nickname was “Ash” but that may be me mixing up the details of other novels.
I’ve thought about this book many times over the years and I would love to read it again to see why it’s stuck with me so much. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, so thanks in advance!
Ringing any bells?
Sounds like Winter Fire by Jo Beverley.
Sophie Jordan, Wicked Nights with a Lover?
Follllllowing
Far more interested in a book like the one resulting from my misreading of the article title, “He Craves Her Nativity Figurines.” He NEEDS those 3 wise men!
@Avengela — Yes, I love it! He’s been searching thrift stores and antique shops in an epic quest for those figurines, and finally he’s found them and must marry her in order to have them for his own. 🙂
It’s definitely Sophie Jordan’s Wicked Nights with a Lover. I remember all of those details.
Isn’t there also a children’s Christmas book (perhaps intended for older children), set in the Victorian era, about a young boy and his widowed mother and a man who carves Nativity figurines? Iirc, the widow and the man finally get married. I can see the illustrations in my head, but the title is just out of reach. Perhaps the book was one of Jordan’s inspirations.
Ok, I got some of the details messed up (it’s actually set in Colonial America), but the book I was thinking of is The Christmas Miracle Of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski.
I, too, thought of The Christmas Miracle Of Jonathan Toomey when I saw the subject of this search. It’s a lovely picture book!
Unrelated, but THANK YOU for r/whatsthatbook! I don’t know how I didn’t know about that already, but I found a book title I’ve been trying to track down for 10+ years within 2 minutes.