Sneak Peek Excerpt: A Snowy White Christmas

As we begin the holiday season, I wanted to share a first chapter excerpt from my sweet holiday romance,
A Snowy White Christmas:

Can she resist the handsome, charismatic Prince Charming a second time?

Chapter One:

Sometimes Margaret Snow’s guilt would go away for a few minutes. But it always returned. Insistent. Dull. Intense.
She was a terrible mother. Check.

She’d never amount to anything. Check.

She only thought about herself. Check.

These negative thoughts chattered incessantly, tucked ever so slightly behind everyday activities. Like uncaged wild animals waiting to pounce at the first opportunity.
She glanced out her office window. Despite the wind and ice, city workers were adding cheery red bells and silver holiday trimmings to the streetlights. It didn’t help. November in upstate New York promised gray skies, bitter sleet, and not an ounce of cheeriness until spring. Today was no exception.
What was the weather like in California? She checked the weather app on her phone. As expected, sunny skies in Los Angeles were predicted throughout the Thanksgiving holiday.
“Unbelievable,” she whispered. “How could two places be so different?”

And why was she stuck in the lesser desirable of the two?

It was her own fault. She’d forgotten her lines during her last audition because she’d been preoccupied with her daughter’s insistent cough that had lingered for weeks. But her agent, Sid, and the casting director hadn’t been interested in excuses, and they just dismissed her as a wannabe actress who didn’t take the acting profession seriously.

“Stick to modeling,” they’d said.

She sighed. She’d been back in her depressing hometown only three weeks and already felt limp and exhausted.
But her daughter Amelie seemed content, and only Amelie mattered. Margaret grinned, remembering the impish smile Amelie would flash whenever she had rolled round and round on their favorite California beach. She’d emerge covered in sand, her small eyeglasses placed carefully on a nearby towel. Her incessant coughing spells would follow, but the physician assistant she saw assured Margaret this was normal in a frail child, and as long as Amelie didn’t develop a fever, there was no need for concern.

“See? I’m fine, Mom,” Amelie would say, giggling while demonstrating a perfect cartwheel in the sand. “Now let’s go for peppermint ice cream.”
Margaret’s heart did a funny little turn. Amelie was so much like her father. A perfectionist and a planner. And that was why she’d ensured that Amelie would never know him.

Snag your ebook copy of A Snowy White Christmas today!
Also available in paperback and audiobook.

Reader Reviews:

“A SNOWY WHITE CHRISTMAS is sure to put you in the Christmas spirit. You can’t help but fall in love with all the characters and get caught up in their lives. I can easily see this wonderful novella becoming a Hallmark Movie. Once I started reading I could not put this heart- warming story down. Josie Riviera gives you such a well-written story of Margaret and Fernando that you can’t help but feel as if they are old friends of yours as you are reading. I cannot wait to read more by this wonderful author.”



“What a lovely story about Christmas in the north. Very well written and full of emotion. I particularly enjoyed the characters, Margaret, Fernando, little Amelie and her menagerie of handicapped pets. I started reading and couldn’t put the book down until I finished it. A wonderful read for Christmas.”