The star has watched over Candlewick every Christmas for a hundred years. This year, saving it may take two people who thought their days of beginning again were behind them.
Glass artist Paula Ostrander came to Candlewick Mill for one job: assess the damage to the beloved amber star that has crowned the mountain every Christmas Eve since 1926.
Her verdict is simple. It can’t be saved.
But Candlewick isn’t a town that gives up on Christmas traditions easily, and before Paula knows it, she’s agreed to create a new star from hand-blown glass. There’s only one problem. The panels are too large for her to make alone.
Enter Roy Beaulieu.
Candlewick’s blacksmith is broad-shouldered, maddeningly capable, and far too accustomed to helping people before they’ve asked. His hands may belong at a forge instead of a glassblower’s bench, but Roy knows heat, patience, and how to learn. Soon they’re spending long December days moving between furnace and anvil, shaping amber glass and dark iron while the entire town cheerfully refuses to mind its own business.
Paula hasn’t worked beside anyone since losing her husband, and she certainly isn’t looking for someone to take his place. Roy has spent years taking care of everyone around him without asking what he might want for himself.
Yet somewhere between broken glass, coal smoke, cardamom buns, snow-covered sleigh rides, and a Christmas Eve deadline racing toward them, the space between their two workbenches begins to feel surprisingly small.
Because sometimes the most beautiful things aren’t repaired. They’re made new.
Frost & Forge is a warm, later-in-life Christmas romance filled with small-town friendship, found family, holiday traditions, quiet humor, and the unexpected joy of discovering there may still be room in your life for something new.
Genre: Romance
Glass artist Paula Ostrander came to Candlewick Mill for one job: assess the damage to the beloved amber star that has crowned the mountain every Christmas Eve since 1926.
Her verdict is simple. It can’t be saved.
But Candlewick isn’t a town that gives up on Christmas traditions easily, and before Paula knows it, she’s agreed to create a new star from hand-blown glass. There’s only one problem. The panels are too large for her to make alone.
Enter Roy Beaulieu.
Candlewick’s blacksmith is broad-shouldered, maddeningly capable, and far too accustomed to helping people before they’ve asked. His hands may belong at a forge instead of a glassblower’s bench, but Roy knows heat, patience, and how to learn. Soon they’re spending long December days moving between furnace and anvil, shaping amber glass and dark iron while the entire town cheerfully refuses to mind its own business.
Paula hasn’t worked beside anyone since losing her husband, and she certainly isn’t looking for someone to take his place. Roy has spent years taking care of everyone around him without asking what he might want for himself.
Yet somewhere between broken glass, coal smoke, cardamom buns, snow-covered sleigh rides, and a Christmas Eve deadline racing toward them, the space between their two workbenches begins to feel surprisingly small.
Because sometimes the most beautiful things aren’t repaired. They’re made new.
Frost & Forge is a warm, later-in-life Christmas romance filled with small-town friendship, found family, holiday traditions, quiet humor, and the unexpected joy of discovering there may still be room in your life for something new.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Mary Walden's Frost & Forge