A Keeper will keep me sane

For me, Christmas is not so much a red and green time of year as it is a blue time. Memories of family conflicts and holiday deaths, and the general strain of making everything perfect for everyone ride into my house on the back of the “black dog” every December.

The “black dog” isn’t a canine, or, God forbid, a racial reference–to me it’s Churchillian. Winston Churchill eased his periods of melancholy by painting or building brick walls. When I have to deal with a stressful time, like Christmas, I pull out my favorite novels.

The Books

Mr. Impossible

This Regency romance by Loretta Chase is one of the books in her Carsington brothers series:

Rupert Carsington, fourth son of the Earl of Hargate, is his aristocratic family’s favorite disaster. He is irresistibly handsome, shockingly masculine, and irretrievably reckless, and wherever he goes, trouble follows. Still, Rupert’s never met an entanglement–emotional or other–he couldn’t escape. Until now.

The story takes place in Egypt, and is chock full of interesting tidbits about European adventurers’ pursuit of ancient treasures.

The book has a new cover, but I like this old one better.

Lord Perfect, the eldest Carsington brother’s story, is also one of my favorites to reread.

The Forbidden Rose

This historical romance set during the Terror of the French Revolution is one of Joanna Bourne’s best. Here’s how the author introduces the story on her website:

As usual, civilization has fallen with a basso profundo clatter and all right-thinking people are at each other’s throats. In Paris, the guillotine’s doing a roaring business. Civil war batters and bashes its way across the countryside. On the philosophical front, the world’s teetering on the cusp of old loyalties and new.

Maggie’s caught in the center. Her old certainties have been swept away. Love and loyalty pull in different directions. To survive, she’ll become someone she barely recognizes.

And Doyle … our Doyle is playing the detached loner. This is maybe not so smart when half of France is after his neck.

So there you go! Three of my favorites, and there are more I’ll probably think of later.

What’s on your keeper shelf? Hop along with my fellow MFRW authors and see what they like to read.

Images: MFRW meme, book covers are from Amazon (Chase) and the author’s website (Bourne)