Robin Jones Gunn's Father Christmas

It's a week before Christmas. Miranda Chester, a stager with an interior design firm in Seattle, has avoided any personal sense of the season ever since her mother, Eve Chester--a stage actress and the only parent she ever knew in Eve never having divulged the identity of Miranda's father--died while performing on stage exactly 20 years ago when Miranda was only nine. Miranda's non-Christmas this year changes when she comes into possession of a long-forgotten suitcase that belonged to her mother. Three items hidden in the suitcase end up being what Miranda believes are clues to her father's identity--a bracelet with an angel charm which she does recognize as one of her mother's prized possessions; a theater playbill from San Francisco of her mother performing in The Tempest in the role of Miranda, that playbill dated nine months before this Miranda's birth; and a photograph of a man dressed as Santa Claus with a young boy on his lap, neither of whom she recognizes. These items make Miranda feel compelled to go to the town of Carlton Heath, Vermont. There, she meets two families, the Whitcombs and McAndricks, that may have some connection. Peter Whitcomb is like Miranda in being a theater brat, his long-deceased father, actor James Whitcomb, after whom the local theater is named. And Miranda ends up staying at the Carlton Heath Inn, owned and operated by husband and wife Andrew and Katherine McAndrick, who along with their son Ian McAndrick, a lawyer and third set of hands at the inn, help Miranda on her investigative work. For the first time in her adult life, Miranda makes a connection not only to Christmas with the McAndricks and Whitcombs but a human connection to Ian himself. But Miranda's connection to the McAndricks, the Whitcombs and Carlton Heath itself may take a turn when she believes she's discovered the mystery as to the identity of her father.

Miranda is flying back to Vermont from her home in Seattle to reconnect with her family over the holidays -- and to see Ian, a local handyman she fell in love with on her last trip to the Green Mountain State. But when changing planes in Boston, Miranda runs into old boyfriend Josh who chases her to Vermont, where Miranda learns of an old family secret that could destroy her family. Can Miranda keep her family -- and her love for Ian -- together and intact, or will she forever lose her chance at a beautiful winter wedding?

When Miranda Chester set off to find information on her biological father two Christmases ago, she never imagined that her investigation would lead her to both the family she had always longed for and Ian McAndrick, the love of her life. After her romantic engagement last Christmas, Miranda prepares to marry Ian this Christmas surrounded by his family and her new family, the Whitcombs. While Miranda navigates this new relationship, her late father's widow, Margaret, forges a surprising romance with a friend from the past.