The moment I met her, I knew Frankie Zeferino was someone worth waiting for. Deadpan delivery, secret heart of gold, and a rare one-dimpled smile that makes my knees weak, Frankie has been forbidden since the day she and I became coworkers, meaning waiting has been the name of my game - besides hockey, that is.

Hi, my name is Bree Camden, and I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend and star quarterback Nathan Donelson (so is half of America, judging by the tabloids and how much the guy dates). The first step is admitting it, right? Except, I can never admit it to him because he clearly doesn’t see me that way, and the last thing I want is for things to get weird between us. Nothing but good old-fashioned no-touching-the-sexiest-man-alive platonic friendship for us! Everything is exactly how I like it! Yes. Good. (I’m not crying; I’m just peeling an onion.) 

Avery Spark is living her best life. Between her friends, her sisters, and Spark House, the event hotel her family owns, she doesn’t have much time for anything else, especially relationships. She’d rather hang out with her best friend and roommate, Declan McCormick, than deal with the dating scene. But everything changes when she is in a car accident and needs someone to care for her as she heals.

If someone were to ask Jasmine Santos to describe the last few years of her life with a single word, it would definitely be a four-letter one. After 17 years - and countless broken bones and broken promises - she knows her window to compete in figure skating is coming to a close. But when the offer of a lifetime comes in from an arrogant idiot she's spent the last decade dreaming about pushing in the way of a moving bus, Jasmine might have to reconsider everything. 

Catalina Martín desperately needs a date to her sister’s wedding. Especially since her little white lie about her American boyfriend has spiraled out of control. Now everyone she knows - including her ex and his fiancée - will be there and eager to meet him. She only has four weeks to find someone willing to cross the Atlantic and aid in her deception. New York to Spain is no short flight, and her raucous family won’t be easy to fool.

It's official. I'm 18 and a young woman with endless possibilities, on my way to reunite with my mom in Colorado after five years apart - she had a little weed incident in Nebraska. At the airport, she springs the news on me...she's leaving for a month of job training. And me? I'm left on my own in the basement she's renting from the fisherman, a.k.a. her landlord who lives upstairs. He's 10 years older than me. Never wears a shirt. And makes it hard to remember all the things I learned at Christian Academy. Did I mention he’s also my new boss?

Hockey star Max Yearwood was everything I needed at the time - fun, sexy, up for anything, and only around for a few months, since he’d signed with a new team 3,000 miles away. Max proposed we spend the summer helping me forget my ex. It sounded like a good plan. Things couldn’t get too serious when we had an expiration date. Right? Though, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. 

I was hanging with the girls, celebrating my divorce, when I saw him - my crush, sitting in the corner of the bar, all alone. Being single and looking for a wild night, I asked him if he wanted to join me. To my delight, he said yes. On paper, it seemed like I had hit the jackpot. And if I wasn't fresh from a toxic marriage, I would have absolutely noticed the finer things about him. But, I wanted nothing to do with being married, so when I arrived back home from my eventful weekend in Vegas, the last thing I expected to see was a new doting husband already moved in. 

As a third-year PhD candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships - but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

Sometimes I need an escape from the demands, the puck bunnies, and the notoriety that come with being an NHL team captain. I just want to be a normal guy for a few weeks. So when I leave Chicago for some peace and quiet, the last thing I expect is for a gorgeous woman to literally fall into my lap on a flight to Alaska. Even better, she has absolutely no idea who I am.

Before he was “Big Texas,” he was “Zac the Snack Pack". Bianca Brannen knows time - mostly - heals all wounds. Including those your once loved ones might have unintentionally given you. (Those just take longer.) She thinks she’s ready when a call has her walking back into her old friend’s life. Or at least, as prepared as possible to see the starting quarterback in the National Football Organization. Before the lights, the fans, and the millions, he’d been a skinny kid with a heart of gold.

Meet Gemma Jacobs. She’s driven, energetic, and a positive thinker. She has a great career working for famed self-help guru Ian Fortune, she lives in a cute studio apartment in Manhattan, and her family is supportive and loving (albeit a little kooky). Her life is perfect. Except for one tiny little thing. After a decade of disastrous relationships and an infertility diagnosis, Gemma doesn’t want a Mr. Right (or even a Mr. Right Now); she just wants a baby. And all she needs is an egg, some sperm, and IVF. So Gemma makes a New Year’s resolution: Have a baby. 

River Tate is a god on campus. The king of football. A tattooed bad boy with gunmetal eyes that see right through you. The only chink in his armor is HER, the girl he pretends doesn't exist, the forbidden one with the shy smile and lavender hair. Anastasia Bailey is a nobody.

Wyatt King isn’t looking for love...because he’s already found it. Too bad she’s off-limits. He’s not going to be the jerk who messes around with his best friend’s little sister, so he keeps his feelings bottled up and settles for acting as her protector instead. Andie Lockhart’s dreamed of kissing Wyatt for as long as she’s known what kissing is. But since he’s dated nearly every woman in town but her, she’s long since accepted he’ll never see her as anything more than his best friend’s tomboy little sister. 

Once upon a time, people called me the holiday queen. But catching my husband under the Christmas tree with another woman kind of did something to me. Like make me digitally crop him out of all our wedding photos and post them online. Thanks to all the requests I received to do the same for other jilted partners, I started a new business called the Holiday Ex-Files. Then along comes my ex-husband’s best friend, Noah Cullen. He has a plan to help me believe in the magic of holidays again. Maybe, just maybe, it will be a very merry Christmas after all.