Spotlight & Giveaway: Jingle Bell Wolf by Terry Spear

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Terry Spear to HJ!

Hi Terry and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Jingle Bell Wolf!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Some rules are meant to be broken.
It’s the Christmas season and Florida gray wolf Gabrielle Lowe, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, is talked into going to a ski resort in Silver Town, Colorado, except her two jaguar girlfriends are held up on a mission. Alone and feeling out of her element in the snowy environment, Gabrielle swims in the lodge’s pool—after it’s closed. Normally not a rulebreaker, she wants to do what she usually does back home—swim.
Gray wolf, Landon Wolff, is part owner of the ski lodge and he’s about to throw a swimmer out of the pool who is swimming after hours—until he sees her, learns she is a wolf, and all the rules change. For her.
Silver Town’s current veterinarian is eager to retire and find a replacement for his position. Landon, and everyone else in the pack, is determined to keep Gabrielle in Silver Town. But first, Landon must convince her living with the wolves in Silver Town is the only way to go—especially if she continues to see him. Change doesn’t come easily to Gabrielle who has never lived anywhere else but Florida. Still, the sexy wolf sure has her attention and maybe breaking the rules and making some major changes in her life could be just what she needs!
 

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I based the avalanche story about the man buried in the snow on a real story.
• The Saint Bernard in the story with the barrel around his neck is based on a ski resort I used to go to with my family—the Timberline Ski Lodge and they had a loveable Saint Bernard sleeping by the big stone fireplace with the traditional barrel around his neck. The information about them carrying doggy treats was all true.
• The hotel stories about patron issues were true stories and so were the stories about the vet cases, including the one based on a woman leaving a bunch of kittens and a cat in a hotel room and money to take care of them. Truth can be stranger than fiction.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

Having been in the military and moved so much, I figured it would be fun to write about a character who has never lived anywhere but one place all her life. Now she’s confronting a fear of the snow after losing her parents in a car accident on a way to a ski resort. Her jaguar shifter friends are willing to do anything they can to get her to the wolf-run ski resort town in Silver Town to encourage her to join a pack, something they’re sure she needs. Family and friends mean everything to the shifters in these stories. But she feels like a fish out of water, leaving her Florida home for a romp in the snow. One thing that creates a bond for her with those of Silver Town is being a wolf, but also, a veterinarian and everyone wants her to stay and be their vet. Sometimes making a change in one’s life can be the best thing that ever happened.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A Print copy of Jingle Bell Wolf by Terry Spear

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Have you ever felt like a fish out of water? What did you do to feel more at home, or if you’d never felt that way, what situation do you think you could be in that would make you feel that way?

 
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Excerpt from Jingle Bell Wolf:

Landon hoped it was the woman he had seen last night in the pool. No way did he want anyone else to get involved. Despite his need to tell the woman she couldn’t swim at this hour, he wanted to see her in the string bikini again. What could he say? He was a bachelor male wolf, and if she was a single she-wolf, he was going to have to rethink his notion that a guest couldn’t swim when the pool was closed. But just for her. And someone, like him, would have to be there swimming with her to make it officially all right. He figured his family would rib him mercilessly about it if that happened.
He was wearing a sweater, pants, and boots, not ready for a swim, but if it happened to be the same woman, he was ready to ditch his clothes, wearing only his boxer briefs, and swim after her.
As soon as he reached the pool, he saw her heading for the glass divider to the outside part of the pool, wearing a red, green, and white bikini. She still looked like a sexy, sweet candy cane, but the swimsuit was not nearly as revealing as the string bikini. This time, her hair was floating around her, long and blond. Before he lost her again, since he couldn’t swim after her, he called out to her, “Hey, what’s your name?”
Not at all like what he should have said to the woman: The pool’s closed! You have to leave now!
He suspected she might just ignore him and keep on swimming.
She turned, her smile radiant. He was a sucker for a pretty smile, yet the notion flitted through his mind that she was just like his ex, doing what she shouldn’t because she thought she could get away with it with a pretty smile. And yet, he wondered, was she the woman he’d seen in the snow last night, walking past his and his sisters’ house? It was hard to tell because the woman had been buried in clothes, a ski hat covering her head and her blond hair swept up in the chilly breeze, but a lighter color than this woman’s wet blond hair.
“Gabrielle Lowell,” she said, treading water.
“The—” He meant to say the pool was closed, but she inter¬rupted him.
“Sorry. I’ll be right out.”
“You’re a guest, right?” He wondered if she was staying at the Victorian Inn or Hastings Bed and Breakfast in town and wasn’t even a guest here.
“Yes. My friends are late in arriving at the lodge, and nothing’s open at this hour.” She motioned to the outdoor area of the pool. “I have to go that way. That’s where my clothes are.”
He glanced around the pool and realized that’s why he hadn’t smelled her scent here before. She must have sneaked into the pool from the outside and left the same way so she didn’t leave any clothes on one of the chaise lounges. Very clever. He would never have guessed it.
Now what? He hurried as fast as he could to the outside so he could reach her before she disappeared again. Though he could look her up on the computer and learn what room she was staying in, her car tags, where she was from. But he would much prefer talking to her first.
When he finally exited the lodge, having to take the long way around to reach a door, he found her sitting on a lounge chair, pull¬ing on a pair of candy-cane socks and then snow boots with fluffy fur around the tops. Her parka was bright pink with a fur collar on the hood, and she was wearing black skintight ski pants. The same clothes he saw the woman in the snow wearing last night. She was a gray wolf like him. He smiled.
She gave him more of a precocious smile this time. Despite her saying she’d been sorry about swimming in the pool, he knew she wasn’t really.
Excerpted from Jingle Bell Wolf by Terry Spear. © 2021 by Terry Spear. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

It’s almost Christmas, and Florida gray wolf shifter and veterinarian Gabrielle Lowe has grudgingly agreed to go with her friends to a ski resort in Silver Town, Colorado. But when her two jaguar shifter girlfriends are held up on a mission, it not only leaves Gabrielle alone for the holidays, but also out of her element at the snowy resort. Determined to make the best of it, Gabrielle takes a dip in the lodge’s heated pool after it’s closed, causing all kinds of trouble…

Gray wolf shifter Landon Wolff, co-owner of the ski lodge, has enough on his plate getting ready for the annual influx of Christmas visitors. The last thing he needs is someone indulging in a midnight swim long after the pool is closed. Just as he’s about to throw the rule breaker out of the pool he realizes that she is also a wolf. Suddenly, all the rules change… Maybe Landon will finally find the she-wolf he’s always wanted to share the holidays with.

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Meet the Author:

Terry Spear is an award-winning author of a over a hundred books. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry also creates award-winning teddy bears that have found homes all over the world, helps out with her grandbaby with another one—or two—on their way, and she has two fun-loving Havanese. She lives in Spring, Texas.