Singletree

My sister Juliet has always gotten everything she wants. It's fine though. I never wanted the spotlight. And now that she's America's most popular starlet? She can have it. But when Gran - the feisty woman who raised us - has a huge party to celebrate her 90th birthday, Juliet brings the Hollywood madness straight to Maryland. In the form of my ultimate movie-star crush, Ryan McDonnell. I can barely form a sentence around the guy. And I definitely can't get over the fact that he's Juliet's new boyfriend. Because I almost believe him when he tells me we have a chance together.

Juliet Manchester is America's best-loved movie starlet. But when a nasty divorce and a sex-tape scandal threaten to tarnish her spotless good-girl reputation, she turns to costar Ryan McDonnell to help distract the media with a passionate (and completely fake) new romance. The only problem? They're both in love with other people.

I'll just admit it right up front - I don't love the holidays. In fact, Christmas makes me downright cranky. Call me the Grinch if you must, but if your dad chose that day to decide he was wrong about that whole wanting a family thing, you'd grow up miffed about mistletoe, too. Every candy cane, ugly sweater, and falalalala reminds me of the worst day of my life. So when my uncle - a bigwig network executive - gives me one last shot to salvage my disastrous TV production career, I've got no choice but to suck it up, head to the small town of Singletree, and fake festive.

Finding myself over 30 and divorced, living in the same small town where I grew up, was not exactly the fast track to personal success. So I took action. I landed a job with a bigger practice in a big city where I'd find more opportunities at work, and hopefully in my social life. I was ready to move on. But when Cormac Whitewood and his adorable daughters came into my life, suddenly my big plans didn't seem so shiny and exciting. Suddenly, I was finding myself drawn to the lonely widower, wishing for more time with him.

I had it all. Killer job, to-die-for apartment overlooking the Hudson, and the successful, doting boyfriend. Well, he was successful, at least. Guys who dote don't break up with you via Post-It. After that, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do. I went home to the smallest small town there is - a place so backward my family was still engaging in a hundreds-of-years-old feud with the Tuckers. Maybe it had evolved from the days of shooting one another to slightly more benign things, like filling family stores with crickets and moving a two-ton moose around town.