Single mom Leah Shriver is doing her best.

But raising a teen boy who grunts and barely speaks doesn't help, especially when she's trying to deal with her health.

Her dreams of meeting Mr. Wonderful have been kicked to the curb, not that they amounted to much anyway. She's stood by and watched everyone around her fall in love.

It doesn't matter now. Finding that elusive soulmate isn't important, not when she has more serious matters to contend with.

Brody Holt is a good guy, even if at first glance he doesn't look like one.

The six-foot two inch brick wall of muscle is a workman; a handyman who fixes things.

A man who's recently been dealt a blow.

He's not bothered about being single, though women desperately try to catch his eye. Attracting attention when he doesn't seek it is a hazard he's grown used to; women seem to like a strapping man with a tool belt around his waist.

But then he meets a woman who isn't trying to catch his eye.

A woman who wants to be left alone.

A woman who is alone, in the one place she shouldn't be.

And he finds himself in the peculiar position of having to catch her eye.

A CHRISTMAS WISH is the ninth book in the Starling Bay series. It is a STANDALONE romance and can be read without having to read the earlier books.