Bestselling author Sheila Roberts is back with a heartwarming holiday romance full of family, love, and a little bit of intrigue!
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Have Yourself a Merry Little Meltdown by Sheila Roberts, which releases on October 13th 2026.
Jordan Frost had to do it. Her family was simply too perfectly eccentric not to put in a novel. She was thrilled when she got an agent and then a publishing deal. For two books. Two! Then reality set in. The book about an oddball family’s holiday adventures is coming out in November. Just in time for her trip home to Holly Bay, Washington, from the big city. Jordan is desperately hoping she can keep her pseudonym a secret so she can stay in her family’s good graces. She wrote the book under a pen name and when it was time for an author picture, she wore a wig and glasses. No one will know it was her, right?
Wrong. Charles Pine, her high school friend who always hoped for more, recognizes the woman he’s never gotten over as soon as he unpacks her book to shelve at the bookstore where he works. He knows this is the perfect opportunity to get Jordan to see him in a new light and he makes sure to run into her when she arrives home. She never thought of him as anything more than a shoulder to cry on back then, but he’s determined to make her see him as boyfriend material. Can he be her hero and help her get through the season with her secret intact? Or at least save her from a holiday meltdown?
When a series of minor family emergencies threatens to add even more chaos to Jordan’s already hectic life, Charles tries to help her find the true meaning of the holiday. Maybe coming home wasn’t a bad idea after all…
EXCERPT
Excerpted from Have Yourself a Merry Little Meltdown, by Sheila Roberts. MIRA, 2026. Reprinted with permission.
It started out small, like little reindeer nibbles.
Jordan Frost was talking with her new editor at Gem Publications about Jordan’s Christmas novel, Family Holiday. “This story is so much fun,” her editor raved. “It reads like one of those Christmas movies we all love with a whole cast of goofy characters, and I can’t help asking, who inspired the White family?”
My family. But they’d done more than inspire. Maybe she should have stuck with inspiration and left those real-life touches out of the equation.
“They’re a composite of people I know,” Jordan said. Like an entire family’s worth.
“So, not your family?”
“Well, every family has a few funny stories to tell,” Jordan hedged, determined to control the narrative.
“Let’s be glad this isn’t a memoir. You might not be welcome at Christmas dinner,” joked her editor.
Nibble, nibble. Jordan’s laugh had about as much ho, ho, ho to it as Santa on a diet.
Well, her Christmas story was fiction. Mostly. Pretty much. Sort of. Anyway, it would be in the fiction section. Nothing to worry about.
But, maybe, just to be on the safe side, she should adopt a pen name. In case someone in her family heard about the book. Yes, pen name. Good idea. Her editor was fine with it.
Except she couldn’t simply change her name and expect to not have her author photo recognized by those who knew her. She went wig shopping. Took a new photo and sent it to her editor. There. Problem solved. Anyway, it was a first novel. It probably wouldn’t have a large print run, wouldn’t make it into many stores. What were the odds of the book making it to her hometown?
Orders started coming in. The numbers were strong. Her editor gleefully informed Jordan that her book had legs. Every book needed legs, especially novels by first-time authors.
But where would those legs take Jordan’s? To her home-town? Nibble, nibble. There went more of her peace of mind.
The nibbling turned into a great big bite the day she was recording a podcast with Krissy MacMillan of the popular Krissy Kills It podcast. Their interview would be part of her Krissy Kills It at Christmas series and Jordan was slated to be the first.
“You’ll be featured in one of her Boomas episodes where she covers Christmas novels releasing in October,” Jordan’s publicist had told her. “You’ll love Krissy. She’s great.”
Krissy was great, friendly, and enthusiastic as she recorded her interview with Jordan for later release. There they sat at their respective laptops, smiling at each other from opposite sides of the country, Jordan making sure she looked exactly like her author photo and Krissy looking Christmas cute in a red sweater, a Santa hat perched on her long, brown hair.
“Want to know what I think of this book?” she asked Jordan playfully.
Jordan already knew. Krissy had told her before they started recording. She played along. “Do I need to be scared?”
“Let me sum it up with my Krissy Kisses,” said Krissy, and started throwing kisses. “Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mmm-mmwah! Five kisses, everyone. I love this book,” she told both her followers and Jordan, making Jordan feel like a little kid seeing the tree on Christmas morning.
How could an interview go wrong with a beginning like that?
“Is Christmas your favorite holiday?” Krissy asked.
“Yes, it is. I love it,” said Jordan.
“Do you have any special family traditions?”
Jordan could think of several. She zeroed in on one of her faves. “Oh, yes. All the women in my family get together before Christmas to bake cookies.”
“I imagine you have some good bakers in your family,” said Krissy.
“We do,” Jordan replied, skipping happily into the trap Krissy had set for her.
“Any who aren’t so good?” There was one, but Jordan hadn’t consented to this interview to throw anybody under the sleigh. So how to answer that?
Krissy didn’t give her a chance. “The family in your book has someone who’s very challenged in the kitchen. What made you decide to write a character who was the queen of kitchen disasters? I’m thinking maybe, with all that family baking you do every year, there’s someone who manages to burn the cookies?” Pushing on the teapot, hoping to tip it and spill some tea.
Jordan’s heart rate picked up. “I think we all can identify with kitchen fails,” she said, hoping the conversation would turn a different direction.
“There’s one fail in Family Holiday that is pretty over the top,” said Krissy. “In fact, the whole family in the book is over the top. What inspired them?”
“I guess you could say they’re a composite of all those funny families we love to watch in movies,” Jordan said. She forced herself to smile. Wasn’t it time for this interview to be over?
Krissy was smiling, too, but hers looked puckish. “So, was this book inspired by someone in your own family?”
That was when Jordan could no longer deny the fact that she’d done something superbly foolish, get-on-Santa’s-naughty-list foolish, get-chased-by-Krampus foolish.
“They’re purely fictional,” she insisted.
“You had that family down so well. I just wondered if anyone who knows you would see a resemblance between your fictional family and your real one,” Krissy pushed.
“Oh, I doubt it,” Jordan said. Only my whole family.
“So, your real family’s not like the White family?” Krissy persisted.
“Not really,” Jordan lied.
“Well, that’s good to know because if they were they probably wouldn’t be buying you anything for Christmas this year,” Krissy joked. Chomp, went the reindeer. Chomp, chomp, CHOMP!
Yep, that interview was the moment denial left the party and fear pulled up a chair and got comfortable. If Jordan’s family read her novel they would tie her to the biggest fir tree they could find in Holly Bay and pelt her with lumps of coal. No rope needed. The Frost family always had plenty of strings of Christmas lights on hand.
