Author Spotlight: Susan Sands Has a New Holiday Anthology

Congratulations to Doris Lankford–you are the winner of Susan’s giveaway! Hope you enjoy that Fraser fir candle! Susan will be in touch with you. Thanks to everyone who stopped by–we always love a chance to talk to our readers!

I had such fun meeting my fellow Tule authors this past summer at our Tule Author Retreat. One of them was Susan Sands–a charming and delightful writer of Southern romantic fiction. She’s here today to share a holiday anthology she’s participating in with five other authors, Once Upon a Christmas Kiss, and she has a special giveaway for one lucky commenter.

A self-described late bloomer, Susan Sands began writing her first novel at age forty. She compares her challenging journey to publication as “raising another child—a difficult one.”

Susan has published five southern, contemporary women’s fiction novels set in Alabama. She describes her humorous small-town stories as fun, romantic, and filled with big family love. Susan also writes authentic place-as-a-character southern fiction with a humorous voice in addition to her Alabama series.

Susan has three grown children and lives with her dentist husband in Roswell, GA. She has a degree in elementary education, is a member of the Georgia Romance Writers, the Romance Writers of America, the Atlanta Writer’s Club,  Womens Fiction Writers of America (WFWA), and the Broadleaf Writers Association. She participates in book festivals, book clubs, and writer’s conferences around the South. Susan is the recipient of the 2017 Georgia Author of the Year award for romance.

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Hello Everyone! Thanks to Nan for having me on the blog today!

I’m Susan Sands, and I write Southern romantic fiction and women’s fiction for Tule Publishing and Harpeth Road Press. I’ve published an Alabama series and a Louisiana Bayou series with Tule. My final Louisiana title will be out May 9, 2024. This year I was part of an independent six-author anthology with five other wonderful authors entitled, Once Upon a Christmas Kiss, set in the delightful fictional town of Cherry Creek, Tennessee. My most recent holiday story was a collaboration with New York Times bestselling author and friend, Lori Wilde. This story is set in New Orleans and fictional Christmas Beach, Louisiana. Both are romantic second-chance stories.

Christmas is my favorite holiday, and for me has always been about family, food, and tradition. I grew up in a tiny town in Northwest Louisiana where I lived next door to one set of grandparents and a mile from the others. They were like second parents to me and I miss them terribly now that they’re gone. I had one older brother named Charlie, who passed away three weeks before my wedding. My dad passed in 2018 from dementia. I’ve still got my mom, thankfully, and she lives nearby in the Atlanta suburbs. I’ve been married to my husband for thirty-four years, and we are blessed with three adult children, two of whom live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

My family has always been what I’ve considered “small”. I envied larger families with lots of kids and all of their cousins who lived nearby. But small has its benefits, I guess. My mom and grandparents were fantastic cooks. So, any holiday meant an abundance of delicious food. Food was love and still is. Being from Louisiana, I learned from both sets of grandparents and my mom how to cook amazing meals. Both sets of grandparents kept enormous gardens filled with organically composted, home-grown, fruits and vegetables. My dad was an avid fisherman, so we always had fresh fish available to us as well.

During my childhood, we spent Christmas at home together every year. We weren’t well off, but I always had everything I needed and most of what I wanted. Christmas was cozy and safe, and I miss my childhood people and those days. I’ve tried to sustain that same special warmth during my kids’ childhoods. I like to think I did a good job continuing our family traditions.

I can’t wait to have them all under my roof again. It gets harder each year for us all to be together. My tree is up and the shopping is almost finished. While it doesn’t sound especially exciting, the Christmases at home with my family are something I treasure deep in my heart.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!!

All the best,

Susan Sands

GIVEAWAY!  As a special Christmas gift, I’m offering my favorite Frasier Fir candle to one lucky commenter. What is your favorite scent during the holiday? Mine is Frasier Fir.

Once Upon a Christmas Kiss

You’re cordially invited to the charming town of Cherry Creek, Tennessee, where the legendary book—Once Upon a Christmas Kiss—promises true love to the one who possesses it during the holiday season.

Don’t miss this collection of unique, romantic novellas by six different authors about women who’ve been given the gift of romance. Featuring all your favorite tropes, such as: small town, Second-chance at love, emotionally scarred, opposites attract, friends-to-lovers, secrets, cute meet-cute, blind-to-love, enemies-to-lovers, and of course, a lot of classic Christmas charm.

Who knows, you might be the next to find Once Upon a Christmas Kiss in your stocking.
Included in this collection:

 by Ciara Knight
Broken hearts reunite for a second chance at love on Christmas night.

Once Upon a Christmas Treasure By Brenda Lowder
When Amelia enlists former best friend Oliver to help her hunt for a legendary book for her sister, she doesn’t know finding the treasure might mean losing her heart.

Once Upon a Christmas Promise By Susan Carlisle
Two emotionally scarred hearts mend through the promise of love.

Once Upon a Christmas Secret By Terra Weiss
To uncover the deepest secret of her late best friend, Dawson must volunteer for the holidays with her nemesis, Sawyer, and do good for the community… and maybe her heart too.

Once Upon a Christmas Wish By Susan Sands
Star-crossed lovers reunite with the help of a little Christmas magic.

Once Upon a Christmas Party By Christy Hayes
Two young millennials find love with the help of a Christmas legend, meddling grandparents, and a well-placed sprig of mistletoe.

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