A Shot at Love:

Please welcome  author of A Shot at Love

Peggy Jaeger author of A Shot at Love will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

A Shot At Love

by Peggy Jaeger

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GENRE:  Contemporary Romance

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Interview: A Shot at Love

What or who inspired you to start writing? I’ve been a life long diarist since the first key and lock diary I received as a Christmas present when I was 6 years old. My life – I felt – was so boring that I never knew what to write on the pages, so I started making up stories and writing them down instead. In less than a year I’d written 3 short stories about a lonely only child whose parents were divorced, and who was a latch-key kid. I don’t think that term is used anymore but when I was a kid it meant a child who let themselves into an empty house every day after school, waiting, alone, until their parents came home from work.

What I didn’t realize at that time was that art was imitating life. I was an only, latch key kid from divorced parents! So even though I was making stuff up, it was based on the reality of my situation. Kinda like reality tv is these days!

As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?

Currently, I’m working on a four book series about a small town boutique wedding business set in New Hampshire and I am actively searching for an agent and/or a publisher who’ll take me on. Know anyone interested? Hee Hee

If you could be one of the characters from any of your books, who would it be and why?

I lovelovelove this question. The first book in the WILL COOK FOR LOVE series is Cooking with Kandy. I would be thrilled if I could be chef-lebrity Kandy Laine for 1 week. She gets to do what is her passion – cooking – everyday, on her own television show, and gets paid for doing it! If someone would pay me to cook – which is one of my favorite things to do in all the world! – I would be over the moon with happiness.

If you were the casting director for the film version of your novel, who would play your leading roles?

Another fabulous question! For A SHOT AT LOVE, I would cast a Katy Perry lookalike to be Gemma, because that’s how I pictured he when I was writing her. Shoulder length, straight-as-a-pin hair with Cleopatra bangs cut blunt across her forhead; long and lithe with a determined walk and a take no prisoners glare. For Kyros Pappandreos, swarthy and sexy FBI agent, well…look up this name on Google: Theo Theodoridis. THAT’S Ky to a T! You can check out my Pinterest page titled GEMMA as well for all pictures relating to these two characters and how I envisioned them in the book. https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/gemma/

When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?

In 2014, when I turned 54, I was hit was the worst menopause Mother Nature ever bestowed upon a woman. Literally. I couldn’t sleep more than 20 minutes at a time and then I’d wake up drenched in sweat and hating my life. OF course I was unable to get back to sleep after this so I began writing a story that had been circling around in my head for a few years during the middle of the night when I couldn’t get back to sleep. My first book, SKATER’S WALTZ, was the end product of that bout of insomnia. Knowing nothing about the current publishing business, and wondering if this story even made sense, I wanted some opinions. And not the opinions of people I knew. I wanted unbiased ones, so I took out a subscription to RWA magazine and trolled through the CONTESTS and CONFERENCES section, where I found a contest I wound up entering. I had no aspirations of winning. I just entered it to see what kind of feedback and critique I’d get on the writing. Well, fast forward a few months. I won my division and the category judge, who was the publisher of The Wild Rose Press, contacted me and asked if I had a completed manuscript of SKATER’S WALTZ she could read. Um, yes! I emailed it to her and then sat on my hands so I wouldn’t gnaw my fingernails off waiting for a reply. Within a month I was contacted by a WRP editor and told they wanted to purchase the book and was it part of series or a stand alone? My mama didn’t raise no dummy. I immediately said it was part of a 5 book series. No idea where that number came from, but 5 books is what I said. Sold! They said. And that was it. You could say that Mother Nature was my impetus to write because if she hadn’t burdened me with menopause induced insomnia, I might never have written that story down and started myself on this publication path.

What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)

Worst advice first: “No one your age ( 54) is going to want to publish anything you write because you’re too old for the market and your stuff isn’t relevant.” I refuse to tell you who said that point blank to me, but rest assured whenever I see this person nowadays I gloat like nobody’s business.

Best advice: From Nora Roberts at a conference. “You want to write a book and get it published? Sit your ass in a chair, lift your fingers to they keyboard and start typing. No one else is gonna do it for you.”

Do you outline your books or just start writing?

Because I’m a Registered Nurse, I have a scientific background. I live for hypotheses, theorems, and evidence based knowledge. Because of that scientific background, I am a master plotter. There is no way I can sit down at the laptop and begin a new story without first knowing everything possible to know about my characters and where the plot is taking me. I am a die-hard GMC writer ( Goal, Motivation, Conflict) so my stories are always ALWAYS plotted out first. I’m that way with everything in my life. I don’t get in the car without first knowing the route I’m gonna travel. I don’t throw a dinner together with stuff left over in the fridge. I’m very anal – yes, I’ll admit it – but it works for me.

Do you have an all time favorite book?

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper. The best damn book about self motivation and actualization ever written. Published first in 1930, it has withstood the test of time, and generations of children ( and adults!) have benefited from its simple message to believe in yourself.

What is your favorite reality show?

OH, Lord, please don’t judge me on this one! The Real Housewives of New York/Orange Country/Beverly Hills. I can’t choose between them so the franchise is my fav!

Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to write a series.

The WILL COOK FOR LOVE series is the second one I’ve written, the MacQuire Women being the first. Both have taught me many things. With the MacQuires I didn’t make a book bible until book 3 was ready to come out. For a writer who writes a series, you need to get everything about your characters, the setting, the timeline of events PERFECT in every book or your readers will call you out on the mistakes. Trust me on that one! When I wrote books 4 and five I had to go back and re-read my first 3 books to make sure I got hair color, eye color, age, stuff like that, right.

I learned how important a book bible was to have from book 1 by the time I started writing the next series. No mistakes in those that I could have prevented, I’ll tell ya.

Writing a series, especially one about families, is so much fun. The characters truly do become family members and each story you tell is like sharing a story from your own family. I love for the readers to discover the little character quirks and thought processes each character has. Writing about sisters is delightful because I got to create on the page the family I always pined for. Being an only child stunk when I was a kid. It still does and I’m 57 years old now! Being able to create a family and following them from book to book, romance to romance, has been a pure delight and pleasure.

BLURB: A Shot at Love

Nothing’s impossible when love is on the menu. In Peggy Jaeger’s luscious series, the only thing more tempting than a delicious meal is a truly delectable romance . . .
Look for exclusive recipes in each book!

Photographer Gemma Laine is looking for arresting faces on the streets of Manhattan when her camera captures something shocking—a triple murder. In that moment, she becomes a target for the mob—and a top priority for a very determined, breathtakingly handsome, FBI special agent. With deadlines to meet and photo shoots on her calendar, Gemma chafes at the idea of protection, but every moment she spends under his watchful eye is a temptation to lose herself in his muscular arms . . .

With two of his men and one crucial witness dead, Special Agent Kyros Pappandreos can’t afford to be distracted. But Gemma is dazzling—and her connection to Kandy Laine’s high-profile cooking empire makes her an especially easy mark for some very bad people. Keeping her safe is much more pleasure than business, but as the heat between them starts to sizzle, Ky is set to investigate whether they have a shot at love . . .

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EXCERPT: A Shot at Love

A woman stood next to the vehicle, a cell phone at her ear, her back to him. Tall, maybe as tall as him, and slender, her back tapered down to a miniscule waist, her legs clad in tight, faded jeans. When she turned Ky almost stopped midstride, the questions he intended to grill her with jumping out of his head. His breath caught as he simply stared at the loveliest woman he’d ever seen.

Hair the color of midnight, straight as a board, fell to just below her shoulders, blowing back from her face in the gentle afternoon breeze. Blunt, chopped bangs, fringed a pair of large, bright blue eyes. Plump, coral colored lips moved as she spoke into the phone and for a brief, hot second, Ky wondered if they’d taste as delicious as they looked.

Her gaze stayed on him as she spoke.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said into the phone. “Yeah. I’ll call when I’m done. Love you, too.”

“Miss Laine?”

She tucked the phone into her back pocket.

“I’m Special Agent Pappandreos. I need to speak with you about what you saw.”

“Special Agent?” Those delicate brows furrowed under her bangs. “Like, FBI?”

Jesus, where does a woman get a voice like that? Whiskey laced with honey and rolled into one smooth pitch.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them.

Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, Peggy brings all topics of daily life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she has created the families she wanted as that lonely child.

Tying into her love of families, her children’s book, THE KINDNESS TALES, was illustrated by her artist mother-in-law.

Peggy holds a master’s degree in Nursing Administration and first found publication with several articles she authored on Alzheimer’s Disease during her time running an Alzheimer’s in-patient care unit during the 1990s.

In 2013, she placed first in two categories in the Dixie Kane Memorial Contest: Single Title Contemporary Romance and Short/Long Contemporary Romance.

In 2017 she came in 3rd in the New England Reader’s Choice contest for A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS and is a finalist in the 2017 STILETTO contest for the same title.

A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, she is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.

Website/Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger

Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-Jaeger-Author/825914814095072?ref=bookmarks

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13478796.Peggy_Jaeger

Instagram: https://instagram.com/mmj122687/

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:

Peggy Jaeger will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f2412