Laurel Holidays

On a small maple farm in Pennsylvania a man seeking forgiveness is going to find much more than he hoped for.

They say the only place to go from the bottom is up. Frank Fitzgerald Jr. has learned how fast a man can fall from grace. A mere two years ago he was insanely wealthy and the next in line to inherit a multi-million dollar company. Now he’s standing on a dirt road in some hayseed backwoods town with one bag of possessions and a shiny new sobriety coin in his pocket. Not only did he tumble from a lofty perch, he crashed and burned in epic fashion, landing right on his pride and breaking it into tiny bits that he fears he may never be able to glue back together, no matter what his sponsor says.

Knowing he had to start over clean—both spiritually and physically—he goes to his younger brother Decker for help. Their first conversation isn’t pretty. Frank knows he has a lifetime of slights to make amends for. Amazingly, his brother and his husband open up their barn to Frank for free lodging while he sorts out his life. Part of that life is a new job which he finds at the Stallard Maple Farm just across the pond from the farm rescue his brother now calls home. While Frank works among the maples he finds himself drawn to the eldest Stallard sibling, Maalik. A friendship forms when he discovers that Maalik has his own demons to contend with. Frank is soon feeling things for Maalik he has never felt for anyone before, especially a man, but he’s willing to test those wild new feelings even if they scare the sap out of him.

The Easter Redemption is a slow burn, bi-awakening, small town romance with two men working to better themselves, goofy farm critters, stately trees, a tiny welcoming community, family lost and found, and a sweet as syrup happy ending.

Can the magic of Christmas, and the soft voice of a man who has seen too much, show Bryan a future where anything is possible?

Bryan Graham is shocked to find he’s inherited a hunting cabin in north-central Pennsylvania. From his grandfather of all people; a stubborn man who went out of his way to make Bryan’s childhood miserable. He’d vowed never to go back to the small, rural community of Kutter’s Summit, not that he didn’t have fond memories of the place. It’s just that he’d rather be celebrating a quiet Christmas back in Nashville with his cat and his contracts.

A couple of weeks of hunting, cleaning, and handyman work, and he can hopefully put the place up for sale and move on with his life. He never expected to find his childhood friend Parson Greer living in the cabin. Parson is no longer a boy, but a handsome, wary man consumed by the demons of a faraway desert war. When a rekindled friendship shifts into something deeper, Bryan finds himself lost in emotions that a workaholic like him has never made time to experience before.

Will two complete opposites learn to cross party lines to benefit their beloved hometown and save Christmas?

Evan Griffiths is enjoying his tenure as the mayor of Cedarburg, Pennsylvania. While it may barely be a blip on the state map, it’s where he grew up and he’s thrilled to be at the helm of the tiny rural community. With the recent election in the past, Evan can focus on his agenda to bring Cedarburg out of the fifties. Being the first gay mayor in the town’s history is a good start but there’s plenty more to do. His first big job as the new mayor is expanding the yearly Christmas Carnival to lure tourists to his fiscally challenged birthplace. Things seem to be moving along at a good pace then a ghost from Christmases past arrives on the morning bus.

As soon as Gideon Pierce returns to Cedarburg he picks right up where he left off back in elementary school tormenting Evan at every turn. Only this time instead of shoving Evan down on the playground, Gideon is bedeviling him with snippy editorials in the local paper and on cable TV. Gideon is no longer the gangly kid he used to be and Even is finding it harder and harder to keep his mind on witty replies to Gideon’s cutting viewpoints when his gaze keeps touching on Gideon’s mouth and the appreciative fire in his brilliant holly green eyes.

A city boy is about to discover the true meaning of Christmas from a man with a heart as big as the snow-covered farm he calls home.

Decker Fitzgerald is all about the job. Which explains why he’s out cruising around the snowy hillsides of the Allegheny Plateau looking for a rundown farm in the middle of a whiteout. If not for his need to prove to his father—and himself—that he is worthy, he could be down in Rio with his friends over the holidays. But no, he’s creeping along winding country roads in search of some two-bit farm animal rescue parcel that Fitzgerald & Sons Well Services is desperate to contract. Seems the owner, some long-haired hippie sort, is refusing to allow them to set up a natural gas fracking pad on his acreage. Foolish tree-hugger types. Why anyone would choose a three-legged goat over thousands of dollars of royalty checks is beyond him.

He quickly finds himself stuck in a ditch and at the mercy of the elements as the snowstorm shifts into blizzard status. It’s then that a lanky stranger with a beat up tractor comes to his rescue. When the greeting and handshake reveal his rescuer is Acosta Melios, the peculiar hipster who owns the farm rescue facility he’s here to sweet talk into signing a contract, the instant pull of those cordial gray eyes falters. That is until Decker is forced to spend several days with the genial and outgoing husbandman. Between the gentle warmth that is Acosta and the loving pull of the abandoned farm animals, Decker is finding it harder and harder to persuade the outgoing farmer into allowing his father’s company to have access to his land. What isn’t hard is falling in love with the man and his throwaway charges. That, it seems, is as easy as falling off a cranky, diabetic llama.

The Christmas Rescue is a standalone small-town gay insta-love Christmas romance with forced proximity, two incredibly opposite men, a barnful of rescued farm animals, oodles of snow, strings of popcorn on a cockeyed tree, and a festive happily-ever-after.