Latkes of Love: A Dickens Holiday Romance by Morgan Malone is a Christmas in July Fete pick #romance #holidayromance #hanukkah #christmasinjuly #giveaway
Is it just the holiday or is it time for Morty and Margot to fall in love for the last time in their lives?
Title: Latkes of Love: A Dickens Holiday Romance
Author: Morgan Malone
Genre: Holiday Romance, Jewish Romance, Small-town Romance. Later-in-Life Love
Book Blurb:
This will never work. He is a long-time widower, immersed in the family business, devoted to his son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons. A long-time pillar of the community. And he thinks she is a busybody, a yenta—always with an opinion, always a little brash, a little too bold.
This will never work. She is a divorcee, the survivor of betrayal at the deepest level by a controlling husband. But she prevailed in the messy divorce and now lives comfortably in a rambling Victorian, shared with her widowed best friend. She keeps busy, at the synagogue, playing mah-jongg and minding everyone’s business. She thinks he is a bit too straitlaced, old-fashioned, and unyielding.
This will never work. Neither is looking for a happily ever after. But as the candles of Hanukkah cast their miraculous glow, love grows. Is it just the holiday or is it time for Morty and Margot to fall in love for the last time in their lives?
Excerpt:
Looking at the plentiful platters of food, Margot hugged Judy then draped her other arm over Iris’s shoulder. “Ladies, did you ever think, all those years ago when we were slaving over that ancient stove in the synagogue’s kitchen in Boston, that we would be preparing dozens of latkes in an elegant chef’s kitchen in a small Christmas town?”
Judy returned the hug to her two best friends. “Never, Margot. But how lucky we are to have each other and our family—our now huge, extended family—to celebrate with us. I never had a sibling and in America, I found sisters of my heart, good men who are like brothers to me, and more children and grandchildren than I ever imagined!”
Iris wiped a tear from her eye before she spoke. “Sorry, you know me, always with the tears whether I am happy or sad. Today, I am so joyful, so blessed. My son is here for the first Hanukkah in more than a few years. My two best friends, who have become my family and are like sisters to me, continue to include me in their very interesting lives. I can shed a tear for my beloved Arthur and Judy’s first love Len—may their memories be a blessing—but I can also grin because we have sweet Saul and dear Morty to share the future with.”
Ruth came into the kitchen with Bo’s sisters, Becky and Beth, to find the three women wrapped in each other’s arms, swaying slightly as they sniffled and softly laughed. “What’s going on? We leave you three yentas alone for a few minutes while we set the tables and come back to some kind of soap opera! Have you been getting into the schnapps?”
“Oh, you all remind me of my mother and her friends! Every Jewish holiday, but especially Hanukkah, they would get teary-eyed about those who had passed and then almost giggly as they surveyed all the young people, especially the babies!” And Beth wrapped her arms around the three thoroughly embarrassed older ladies.
“Wherever and whenever we gather, close to home or far away, our traditions wrap us in their warmth and history. My bubbe grated potatoes by hand and never felt the job was truly done right unless she nicked at least one knuckle. My mom was over the moon with her first food processor, proclaiming that Hanukkah had finally come into the twentieth century. She began processing everything she could find to make latkes!” Becky laughed, even as she brushed a tear from her eye.
“That’s right, Becky! That’s how we came to discover and love sweet potato latkes and zucchini latkes.” Beth chortled and pointed to two of the platters weighed down with hot, crisp latkes, sitting on warming trays on the huge kitchen island. “But the parsnip ones she tried were a disaster.”
Margot and the other women laughed with them. “No matter what the ingredient or whether we make them by hand or using modern utensils, we make the latkes with love.” She laughed again, louder this time, her deep rich chuckle bringing smiles to all their faces. “We would have to truly love the people we feed to put up with hours of peeling and grating potatoes and other veggies, cut knuckles and all, then frying a million latkes in hot oil, with the resultant burned fingers and greasy splotches on our clothes. And schvitzing throughout from the heat! I’m glad all of us were familiar enough with the process to bring other clothes to change into before the rest of the crowd comes in here looking for food. These really are latkes of love!”
As the sun began sinking behind the hill, they called the men and children to wash their hands and join in around the long dining room table to light the menorahs and sing the prayers for the first night of Hanukkah.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
https://www.bookbub.com/books/latkes-of-love-a-dickens-holiday-romance-book-29-by-morgan-malone
What I love most about the holiday season:
Family and friends. And traditions. We light the candles on the menorah that has been our family menorah for almost forty years. We make pot roast, rugelach and soup recipes passed down for three generations. We gather for several nights during Hanukkah to eat, reminisce and create new family memories, in the glow of the beautiful Hanukkah candles.
Why is your featured book a must-read to get you in the holiday mood?
Latkes of Love is set in Dickens, a fictional small New England town. Given the town’s name, Christmas is a year-long celebration, but festivities hit their peak in December. My book celebrates the “other” December holiday: Hanukkah. While the focus of this later-in-life love story is a Jewish man and woman, well past their “prime”, who have known each other for years, it is truly a story of family, friends and traditions. And miracles.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/92db7750332
Open internationally.
Runs July 1 – 31, 2025
Drawing will be held on August 1, 2025.
Author Biography:
Morgan Malone has been reading romance since the age of twelve, when she first snuck her mother’s copy of The Saracen Blade under the covers to read by flashlight. An award-winning published author of fiction by the age of eight, Morgan waited fifty years, including thirty as an Administrative Law Judge for a small New York State agency, to pen her next work of fiction. Now retired from her legal career, Morgan lives near Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with a backyard full of birds. And squirrels, rabbits and a woodchuck! When not writing later-in-life romance about men and women who fall in love for the last, or maybe the first, time in their lives, Morgan is penning romantic memoirs or painting watercolors. She travels frequently with her daughter, a Clinical Psychologist, and shares fun family times with her son-a realtor, her daughter-in-law-a nurse, and her two delightful grandsons, who live nearby.
Social Media Links:
http://www.MorganMaloneAuthor.com
www.Facebook.com/MorganMaloneAuthor