Christmas Extravaganza: Christmas Lights

by Tanya Hanson

The Christmas party at Hearts Crossing Ranch is the highlight of the Season in Mountain Cove, Colorado, but Lori Lazaro longs to be anywhere else...until a handsome cowboy driving a one-horse open sleigh starts a journey of the heart. Deep down, she doesn't want it to end, but it must. Heston Calhoun lives life in the spotlight, and after past trauma, Lori needs the comfort of a life in the shadows.

Lori Lazaro stirs Heston like no woman ever has before. Sure, his family stars in a popular unscripted television show about ranch life, but he’s not going to let Lori’s skittishness end their story before it even begin s. Having faced dark moments in his own past assures him God can brighten her future. He simply needs to convince Lori that together, they’ll write a happy ending after all.

Kindle          Nook             ePub/Adobe/Mobi

About Tanya Hanson

California beach girl and country grandma Tanya Hanson lives on the Central Coast with her firefighter husband and enjoys family, travel, and volunteering  at the local horse rescue. 

Review

I love a good Christmas tale, and especially enjoy novellas—short and sweet, for the busy holiday season. CHRISTMAS LIGHTS is a short, sweet Christmas tale…a really good one. But it’s so much more than that.

I’m becoming increasingly impressed with Tanya Hanson’s style of writing. No one writes prettier descriptions of scenery. But this author is more than description. Turns of phrase. Humor in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times. Heart and soul.

Magic. Her writing is magic.

In CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, Hanson tackles a subject not often seen in Christian fiction, and certainly not in a holiday romance. It's not a cheery subject. It isn’t a topic discussed around the fireside over mugs of egg nog and hot cider. Yet it's a situation in which this amazing author places her character and brings a loathsome crime into play. She does it with grace and tact and finesse.

The hero is a cowboy whose family ranch is a reality show. He's utterly perfect. Then again, not exactly. But his imperfection isn’t even worth mentioning…or is it?

The heroine is a writer with a load of emotional baggage, who guards her privacy with fierce determination. She hides a horrifying secret—and a suddenly misbehaving heart...at Christmas time, with her 6-year-old niece in tow, and television cameras in every corner. She’s more than a little camera shy, and with the best of reasons.

Hanson turns the task of creating a happy-ever-after for these unlikely characters into a beautiful, romantic, interesting journey. CHRISTMAS LIGHTS is well and truly worth the read.


Mini-interview

Which character in your new release did you most enjoy writing? Why?

It’d have to be Heston. Not only do I find that cowboys make terrific heroes, I also love his sensitivity and patience with Lori. He’s curious, but he doesn’t push, and is respectful of the darkness that’s derailing her. I’m so glad the Lord let him help her find the Light.

   

What makes you laugh out loud?

I find most sitcoms inane , but The Big Bang Theory makes me laugh out loud. I’m still chuckling at the recent episode when the guys want to avoid answering their ladies so they speak to each other in Klingon. I also laughed out loud years ago when I was in the school library on a translation website trying to find a Latin phrase. When I scrolled down the list of actual languages, there it was in the mist of them: Klingon. Sheesh.

Please share a verse of scripture that is especially meaningful to you, and why it is special.

It has to be Psalm 121:1—I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. Nine years ago, my husband was battling testicular cancer and nearly lost his life to complications from chemotherapy. Although this particular chemo protocol often cures this horrific disease, it takes a miserable toll on the human body, and there were far too many mornings when I thought he’d died in the night. But each morning, the TopaTopa mountains near us caught my eye ,and I’d just recite this verse over and over, and pray and cry until there was almost nothing left. But there was—my Lord and Saviour who saved me yet again.

And my sweetheart, too. Three years ago, he reached the point of remission where he can now say he is cured. Every day, he enjoys being a grandpa to the world’s three most amazing little ones. LOL.

Friendship Month: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

by Tanya Hanson

When I was a little girl attending Lutheran school, the hymn What a Friend We Have in Jesus was one of our standard sing-alongs in the classroom and at chapel. Sorry, but I thought the tune was a snore even at six years old. Let me have the rousing Onward Christian Soldiers any way! Even the doleful Go to Dark Gethsemane revved me up more.

But eight elementary-school years drilled the beautiful words into my mind. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear, and what a privilege, yes, a privilege—to carry everything to Him in prayer.

I picked up on the warning of the peace we forfeit when we don’t bring Him everything in

prayer. And I got a lot of the hymn right. When I was discouraged, when I had trials and temptations, I prayed. I pleaded. Of course I prayed my eyes out during high school and

college and the start of real life. In adulthood, I prayed about big stuff, like my dad’s fatal car accident, and losing my “twin brother” Mike to cancer. I prayed about the little stuff, like a nasty headmaster or picky editor, or a rejection for a manuscript that had been pitched and requested. I got through it all.

But I wasn’t doing the rest of it. The unspoken “everything.” I didn’t thank Him enough, and worse, I didn’t simply praise Him.

Then cancer hit my household. My husband Tim.

Worse, the nightmare, the upheaval, the battle, started just one month after we lost Mike to a sudden, irrevocable cancer. Tim had grown up with Mike, and they met me in high school. Mike and I shared the same birthday and we celebrated 35 of them together. Everybody knows about my “twin brother” being dearer to me than any blood kin. Best man at my wedding. Pallbearer for my father. My son’s godfather. Ski trips at Tahoe, camping in the Sierras, my daughter’s birth, confirmations and graduations… Yes, every hill and valley of life, Mike had been at my side.

Until I needed him most. Until my husband faced surgery, chemotherapy, and complications, complications, and complications some more.

I felt angry. Alone. But I wasn’t. When I scrambled out of the initial darkness, I remembered another best friend. Jesus.

And I remembered the “everything.” On my knees, I promised my Lord and Savior I’d bring Him everything. My heart, my terror for my husband, my plea for a cure. My tears over losing Mike.

As well as the everything else. Each morning during those dreadful months of chemo and recovery, I stepped outside on the patio and prayed. But the first thing was thanksgiving, for my kids and grandkids, for the wise oncologist who gave me his home phone number in case I needed to talk, any time day or night. For neighbors who brought me food, for kind strangers on a cancer loop who got me through dark nights. Then of course, I begged for my husband’s health and life.

Those were the needful things, the expected things. The next thing I did, and sometimes I had to force it out, was simply to praise God.

It worked.

These days, my husband is cancer-cured, and we enjoy the blessings of our life to the fullest. Our three grandchildren including a newborn baby girl fulfill every dream we’ve ever had. Mike’s daughters will always be my beloved nieces. His wife, whom I call my sister-in-law, is coming this very weekend for some girl time even though she lives hours away. My wonderful friend and brother didn’t leave me alone, after all.

Nor did my Lord Jesus.

I still “get” the hymn. I pray, I try. I admit the “help me” and “thank you” prayers often take precedence over the downright praise, but I try. I truly do.

And my Best Friend knows.




California beach girl and country gramma Tanya Hanson lives on the Central Coast with her firefighter-husband. Close enough to their three grandchildren for a lot of spoiling, she also enjoys traveling with her personal hero and volunteering at the local horse rescue. She is multi-published in many genres, but inspirational romance always reminds her of God's great gifts of love and faith.



Contact:

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