Excerpted from HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE MELTDOWN, by Sheila Roberts:
Things hadn’t always been awkward between Jordan and Charles. He’d been her buddy in high school, sitting behind her in honors English and History. She’d bake him chocolate chip cookies and he’d critique her short stories. They were regulars at The Cutting Room Floor, the town’s old movie theater that showed classic movies. At Halloween she always booed him, leaving bags of his favorite candies on his family’s front porch. Charles had become a regular visitor at her house, almost like a member of the family. And members of the family had roped him into more than one escapade.
It was Charles who’d noticed the rash forming on her face the time she’d used the skin cream Aunt Samantha had concocted for her to get rid of zits. By lunch, Jordan’s face had looked like a mask leftover from Halloween, and it had been Charles who had driven her home from school. Mom had ignored Aunt Samantha’s dire warnings about toxins, taken Jordan to the doctor and gotten a prescription for a different cream, which cleared up the mess in a few days.
It had been Charles who brought Jordan books to read over the weekend while she was hiding out at home recovering, from both the rash and embarrassment. He had even stayed to watch Pride and Prejudice with her.
He brought her a Seattle’s Best chocolate bar as consolation the day she’d flunked the written exam for her driver’s license the summer after her sophomore year and had helped her hone her skills so she could pass the second time. Which she did. She’d baked him more cookies.
In their junior year he’d given her a get-well card after she broke her ankle messing up her Herkie jump while cheerleading. It was only a bone chip, but it was enough to take her out for the rest of the football season.
The squad had sent her a card that everyone signed but only one girl had texted her to see how she was doing. Nobody said they missed having her on the squad. Probably because they didn’t. Admittedly, she was the weak link in the cheer chain, but she was still part of the chain. They’d have all been over with cards and balloons if it had been her older brother Logan who’d broken his ankle.
“They’re snobs anyway,” Logan had said. The same brother who was the star quarterback of the Holly Bay Panthers and had dated almost every cheerleader on the squad.
He was right though. The other girls were surface nice, often sitting with her (and Logan!) at lunch, including her in home-coming parties, but she knew she wasn’t really one of them, even though she tried to fit in and talk less about the latest book she was reading and more about the latest cute outfit she’d seen online and what boy she was crushing on. That was always dangerous territory. When it came to boys, competition could be fierce and the girls could be ruthless. Cliques formed within cliques, so certain slumber parties happened without her, along with certain outings to Beach Bob’s Burgers.
It was Charles who was always there for her. Charles, who was always on hand to sample the burned brownies Jordan’s younger sister Gwinnie baked and say they tasted fine. He kind of liked that charcoal taste. Charles was the listening ear when Jordan’s love life wasn’t going according to plan, which meant he spent a lot of time listening. It was Charles who would say that boy du jour wasn’t worthy of her. Charles was the best.
But as a friend. He didn’t stir up Jordan’s hormones. He was a sweet nerd who came complete with glasses. The closest he got to anything athletic was to ride his bike around town or play an occasional game of tennis. Mostly he was happy to spend his spare time gaming and reading sci-fi and fantasy.
She had her fantasies, too, and in that year of the broken ankle they featured Cole Atkins, a Holly Bay High Panthers quarterback and picture of total yumminess. She wanted more than anything for him to take her to the Christmas ball. Her boot would be off in time, and she would show her faux friends that she was one of them when she arrived with Cole. She knew he liked her. A girl could tell those things.
Excerpted from HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE MELTDOWN, by Sheila Roberts. MIRA, 2026. Reprinted with permission.
Narrator: Tanya Eby
A Home for the Holidays Christmas Romance Novel
USA TODAY and PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY bestselling author Sheila Roberts is back with another crowd‑pleasing and heartwarming holiday romance full of family, love, and a little bit of intrigue, as a debut novelist tries to keep her author identity secret from the family members who inspired her offbeat characters.
Jordan Frost had to do it. Her family was simply too perfectly eccentric not to put in a novel. She was thrilled when she got an agent and then a publishing deal. For two books. Two! Then reality set in. The book about an oddball family's holiday adventures is coming out in November. Just in time for her trip home to Holly Bay, Washington, from the big city. Jordan is desperately hoping she can keep her pseudonym a secret so she can stay in her family's good graces. She wrote the book under a pen name and when it was time for an author picture, she wore a wig and glasses. No one will know it was her, right?
Wrong. Charles Pine, her high school friend who always hoped for more, recognizes the woman he's never gotten over as soon as he unpacks her Christmas novel to shelve at the bookstore he owns. He knows this is the perfect opportunity to get Jordan to see him in a new light and he makes sure to run into her when she arrives home. She never thought of him as anything more than a shoulder to cry on back then, but he's determined to make her see him as boyfriend material. Can he be her hero and help her get through the holiday season with her secret intact? Or at least save her from a holiday meltdown?
When a series of minor family emergencies threatens to add even more chaos to Jordan's already hectic life, Charles is right there to help her find the true meaning of the holiday. Maybe coming home wasn't a bad idea after all...
Romance Holiday [ MIRA, On Sale: October 13, 2026, Paperback / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780778305941 / eISBN: 9780369775856 ]
Read Sheila for a Good Time
USA Today and Publisher's Weekly best-selling author Sheila Roberts has written over sixty books under different names, ranging from devotional, self-improvement and memoir to fiction. Her novels have been turned into movies for the Lifetime, Hallmark and Great American Family channels. Her 2024 Christmas novel, The Merry Matchmaker, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Sheila is happily married and lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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