Silver & Shine

Gloria Bennett is eager for the possibilities 1961 will bring, but first comes Christmas, along with the final chapter of a treasured Pine Hollow tradition.

At twenty-nine, Gloria is ambitious, practical, and more interested in building the Sommer family businesses than in putting up a Christmas tree in her bay window at Hope Cottage. Her grandfather, Milton Sommer, taught her much of what she knows about hard work and determination. This will be her first Christmas without him. So when her grandmother asks her to open Hope Cottage for one last holiday home tour in his honor, Gloria agrees.

Determined to do Christmas her way, Gloria trades a fragrant pine for a gleaming aluminum tree and fills her home with modern touches. But old family treasures surface, carrying memories of earlier generations who made Hope Cottage part of their Christmases, too.

When a last-minute plumbing mishap brings a widower and his twelve-year-old daughter through her door, Gloria is surprised by how much she enjoys the interruption. Their presence adds another layer of warmth to a season already stirring memories of the traditions she'd nearly forgotten still mattered.

Gloria is proud of the life she's building. But as the silver branches of her unconventional tree shimmer with color and her once-empty dining room fills, she realizes some of life's brightest possibilities may be the ones she never planned for.

Step into Christmas at Silvermist Lake with Silver & Shine, part of an interconnected novella collection where family history, changing times, and holiday traditions connect one generation to the next.