Hello, friends! Today I continue a series of holiday guest posts featuring talented authors who will share a little about themselves and their books. I asked them each to answer some holiday-related questions. Let’s get to know author Maria Imbalzano. Welcome, Maria!

–What’s your favorite holiday movie and why? I love “The Holiday” with Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Jack Black. It’s a “swapping homes” story where two women, one a wealthy California producer who lives in a mansion and one an English journalist who lives in the countryside, find each other through a house exchange website. Each of them is nursing a heartbreak and want to get away for the Christmas holiday. And of course, each of them finds love in their home away from home. This movie has just the right amount of conflict, humor, tenderness, and spirit without being the normal fare we usually see around the holidays.

–What’s your holiday “specialty?”  I’m not much of a cook, but I do like to bake—probably because I’m addicted to sugar. Christmas cookies are my favorite, so I guess that’s my specialty, although I want to be clear that I really don’t belong in the kitchen. I always baked these treats with my mom, and now I do it with my daughters and granddaughters. Of course, they don’t come out as good as when my mom was involved.  The problem with my baking in general is that I’m a little casual with quantities. My mother, daughters and husband have all commented on my methods of measuring water, flour, sugar etc. My response: Is there really a difference between dry measuring cups and wet? And do the measurements actually have to be exact?

Despite my shortcomings, we make butterballs, kiefli, chocolate walnut, and recently added red velvet crinkles (in honor of my book). In my opinion, they are all delicious.

Maria Imbalzano is an award-winning contemporary author who writes about strong, independent women and the men who fall in love with them. She recently retired from the practice of law, but legal issues have a way of showing up in many of her novels.

Maria is a member of New Jersey Romance Writers and has received many honors and awards for her work including the Readers’ Choice Heart of Excellence Award, the Write Touch Readers Award, The NEST (National Excellence In Story Telling) Award, the Carolyn Award, The Stiletto Reader’s Choice Award, Book Buyers Best Award, Long & Short Reviews Book of the Month Award, and Still Moments Magazine Reader’s Choice Award.

When not writing, she loves to travel both abroad and in the states.  Maria lives in Lawrenceville with her husband–not far from her two daughters and granddaughters.

Book blurb:

Competitive, work-obsessed Bella Simonetti has just been fired from her high-paying job at a Manhattan law firm. At an all-time low, she returns home and helps her parents at their small-town gift shop, but the business is failing and may not make it past the Christmas holidays.

Successful landscape architect Dean Jackson is like a son to Bella’s parents. But he’s a persistent annoyance to her—he seems to have forgotten his unforgivable blunder thirteen years earlier.

When Bella transforms her parents’ gift shop into a cookie cottage, Dean’s generosity and magnetic smile are hard to resist, and those feelings of unrequited adolescent love come rushing back. But can Bella let go of the past and accept Dean for the man he is today?

A favorite line from the book: Some women fear the fire. Some simply become it.

Connect with Maria:  http://www.mariaimbalzano.com

https://books2read.com/u/38d09r

Thanks for joining us today, Maria! I also enjoy The Holiday and have already seen it a couple of times this season! And I love your quote from the book! Readers, what’s your favorite holiday movie?

Darlene