It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas: A Novella

By Julianna Keyes

*Hallmark with Snark*

 

Two rival travel writers are sent on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday to learn the true meaning of Christmas without killing each other…

 

Eve Sherwood has never been a fan of Christmas. Too commercial, too busy. But when her editor assigns her to write a piece on Noelville, a special one-week Christmas experience, she has to go. She knows her job is to write a predictable holiday story, but how much gingerbread can one girl eat?
 

Will Fowler doesn't believe in magic or Christmas, and certainly not the magic of Christmas. And he's none too happy when he boards the train to Noelville and finds his nemesis, Eve Sherwood, already seated. Now he's supposed to tolerate the faux cheer and the snow and the non-stop jingle belling with her sleeping in the quaint cabin next door?

 

Eve and Will know this trip is a test to see who can set aside their disdain and write the most absurdly sappy story in order to win an upcoming promotion. They know how the standard holiday script goes: Cynical city person travels to a small town, helps save Christmas, and falls in love with the attractive local. But what happens when two cynical city people travel to Noelville, help save Christmas, and accidentally fall for each other?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julianna Keyes
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781777269746

Julianna Keyes

Julianna Keyes is a Canadian writer who has lived on both coasts and several places in between. She's been skydiving, bungee jumping and white water rafting, but nothing thrills--or terrifies--her as much as the blank page. She writes sizzling stories with strong characters, serious conflict, and lots of making up. For news on upcoming releases, behind the scenes insight, giveaways & more, sign up for her free newsletter at juliannakeyes.com/newsletter.html.

Book preview

Chapter 1

There’s no such thing as magic.

Eve Sherwood looked at the cursor blinking on her laptop screen and counted the words: six. She needed four thousand by the end of the week, so that was a good start. Well, technically, it was a start. Better than zero.

Somebody bumped her arm and apologized, and then his wife and two kids bumped her arm as well, each of them murmuring apologies as they squeezed down the cramped path through the middle of the small train. The Christmas train, Eve reminded herself, adding those words to the document. A Christmas train to Noelville, Vermont, six days before Christmas. The only way in and the only way out. And, if the snow continued falling at its current steady rate, perhaps the only part of the town’s renowned holiday flair she’d get to write about.

After years of trying, Eve’s editor, Blanca Cole, had scored two tickets to the exclusive winter experience and had chosen Eve to join her to write about the magical seasonal adventure for the hugely popular travel site, Live Laugh Travel. Eve didn’t believe in magic, nor did she care for Christmas or any of the commercial holidays that were designed to jam the concept of warm and fuzzy down one’s throat at any cost, but she’d been writing for the site for three years and this was her first big break. A senior writer was retiring in the new year and Eve knew this was her opportunity to show she was ready for the role. No more flights to Vermont followed by antique train rides to remote winter landscapes. Finally, she’d be the one climbing volcanoes in Bali and scuba diving with sharks in Bermuda. She couldn’t mess this up. She wouldn’t. She’d plaster on a smile and fake it through this week, no matter what it took.

What’s wrong with your face?

Eve jolted in her seat, belatedly realizing she’d been smiling weirdly as preparation for the coming days. Now that smile vanished as she looked up to see her arch nemesis, Will Fowler, staring down at her. 

"What are you doing here?" She rose in her seat and craned her neck to look at the front of the small train. And then the back. Where was Blanca?

I was going to ask you the same thing, he replied, squeezing past her and dropping into the empty seat next to the window. The last empty seat on the train. The brochure said it seated exactly one hundred.

That’s Blanca’s seat.

He held up his ticket, which clearly had his demonic name printed on it, next to his seat number, 22. Nope. It’s mine. You’re in Blanca’s seat.

She held up her own ticket. No, it’s mine.

His brow furrowed, and she thought, not for the first time, how irritating he was. He looked like Clark Kent, with dark hair and glasses, and a jawline her coworkers described as chiseled. Like the way he’d chiseled his way to the top of the writer queue and was now, apparently, trying to chisel his way into the senior writing spot.

I’ve been assigned to write a magical piece about the magic of Christmas in Noelville, he said.

"I’ve been assigned to write a magical piece about the magic of Christmas in Noelville."

His mouth quirked. Careful. If you get any redder, you’ll be the same color as your hair.

Eve could feel her cheeks heat even further. She’d never been good at hiding her outrage about life’s many frustrations, like people walking too slow on the sidewalk or carrying golf umbrellas anywhere other than a golf course. But she’d have to learn to hide that if she was going to write the best story this week. This was probably Blanca’s big plan. She was testing her. She’d thrown the most irritating human on the planet into her path to see if she could still be professional and get the job done. Which she totally could.

Just shut up and don’t talk to me, she said.

Chapter 2

Will could not believe Eve Sherwood was here. She was the worst. So smug and judgmental, always complaining when people ordered complicated drinks at coffee shops and she had to wait for them to decide if they wanted oat milk or soy. The fact that she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen only made her more annoying. And now she was here? On this train? He was too experienced to believe she’d stolen the ticket from Blanca; Blanca had clearly sent them both to Noelville on purpose. And now the train was pulling away from the station, so there was no turning back. Not that he would. Will Fowler never backed down.

He did, however, despise this particular time of year. And if Eve’s many rants about commercialism and forced good cheer were anything to go by, she felt the same. So, they had that in common. Will knew this was a test from Blanca, who began planning her holiday movie watching schedule in the summer. She loved those sappy, formulaic stories of cynical city folk traveling to a small town and falling in love with a pumpkin farmer and saving the business from ruin when a big pumpkin company tried to move in. She wore fuzzy sweaters with reindeer and played Christmas music beginning midnight on November first. She knew no limits, and this was proof. She wanted him to write his own sappy story about the magic of Christmas and he’d do it, even if it killed him. The senior writing position opened up so rarely that he needed to seize his chance. If he could just get through this, he’d spend next year visiting the ancient wonders and meeting penguins in Antarctica. That was his dream, and nothing would stand in the way of it, certainly not the woman pretending to be asleep next to him.

But that was fine. He could get started on the piece while she fake-dozed. Her loss. Pulling out his laptop, he rested it on the meal tray and stared at the blank page. Truth was, when he’d been given the assignment, his mind had gone immediately blank. It wasn’t that he’d grown up a lonely orphan who’d never had a Christmas tree, but his family had gone through the motions of the holidays, not the emotions of the holidays. They decorated the house, but only to keep up with the neighbors who took their decorating seriously. They bought expensive gifts, but only to post pictures of them online later. It never felt real.

The holidays are magic, Will typed, glancing out the window. The snow was really coming down. The fields outside were blanketed in white and what little of the sky he could see was a hazy gray. The softly falling snow, the trundle of a Christmas train, the shimmering excitement of the passengers... He looked at Eve from the corner of his eye. Her mouth had fallen open and she gave a little snore. He smirked.

There’s no better time of year to fall in love. Even the most hardened of hearts soften during this special season, when magic floats in the air like snowflakes and love heats up like a mug of hot cocoa.

He was gagging a little as he typed, but that was to be expected. This was exactly what Blanca wanted, and he would give it to her. It pained him to give Eve credit, but she was a good writer, and just last month she’d written a piece on a mushroom farm-slash-matchmaking company in North Carolina that had gone viral. Get into fungi and you just might meet a fun guy! she’d written, knowing it was exactly the schmaltz Blanca fell for.

So yeah, the competition was stiff.

WELCOME TO NOELVILLE!

Will straightened in his seat and glanced around, taking a moment to remember where he was. He must have drifted off after failing to come up with a way to describe holiday gatherings as anything other than overcrowded, pressurized and wholly unavoidable unless you work as a travel writer and use that as your excuse every year.

Next to him, Eve was smoothing her hair and reapplying lip gloss, though she already looked perfect. Until she looked at him, that was, and her brown eyes narrowed. A smattering of freckles splashed across her nose and her pouty bottom lip was clearly primed to launch some type of insult his way. Then she bit that lip and something in his chest tightened. Heartburn, probably. He had to stop eating fast food for breakfast.

Happy holidays, Will, she said as passengers began to stand, ready to step off the train and into the winter wonderland they’d call home for