Christmas and Cannolis by Peggy Jaeger

Please welcome Peggy Jaeger author of Christmas and Cannolis

Peggy Jaeger will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Christmas & Canollis

by Peggy Jaeger

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GENRE: Contemporary Romantic Comedy

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INTERVIEW:

4. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?My bio on my website ( https://peggyjaeger.com/bio/) lists 10 things you should know about me. I can add so many more, but the biggest one is that, despite speaking in public for a number of years, I simply abhor doing it. I get very nervous, start to ramble, and I sweat like a working farm animal. I’ve recently launched a You –Tube site(  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDR8RRIlssIyS0FYZWeGqsg/videos) and I’ve had to do little 10-12 minutes vignettes of just me…speaking. It’s horrifying, to say the least! I find myself asking “Who is that?” when I have to edit them. I’ve often heard it said I have a voice for silent movies and a face for radio. True, dat!
5. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?I’m always looking for new opportunities. I still want- and feel I need – an agent, esp. if I want to stay in the traditionally published category. I’m just not into the indy part and don’t know if I ever will be. I’d like to one day get out of the print on demand ( POD) realm and actually see my books delivered to a brick and mortar book store, so I’m always on the lookout for anything that can help me in that way. Not much luck finding it yet, though.

7. If you were the casting director for the film version of your novel, who would play your leading roles? I love this question so much. CHRISTMAS AND CANNOLIS is a Holiday themed book staring a cast of Italian/Americans. For Sonny SanValentino, the patriarch, I think Denis Farina would do nicely. Mama Ursula would have to be Doris Roberts or Laini Kazan, hands down! For Regina, my beautiful, tragic heroine, I envision Mila Kunis and for Connor Gilhooly, a young Richard Gear will do perfectly. In fact, you can see them all on my Pinterest board for Christmas and Cannolis, Baked with Love (https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/baked-with-loved-regina-and-connor/)

9. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?In 2014 I was working for my husband’s clinic as a Contact lens technician and approaching my 54^rdbirthday. At the same time I was going through the worst menopause ever inflicted upon a woman. Truly. The worst. I was at a crossroads in my life because my daughter had graduated college and was out on her own, while my husband was still working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week. I’d always wanted to write a romance book ever since I picked up my first copy of Pride and Prejudice as a pre-teen. So, while I was suffering through continual night sweats and chromic insomnia, I started writing a story that had been swirling around in my head for years. My first book was, truthfully, written between the hours of 1 am and 3 am every night for 3 months. When it was done I had no idea if it was any good. None of my friends are writers, and I couldn’t ask anyone for an objective opinion, so I decided to submit the first 3 chapters to a contest. Well, I won my division and the publisher of Wild Rose Press, Rhonda Penders, was my judge. She emailed me to ask if the manuscript was complete, I said it was, sent it and one year later my first book SKATER’S WALTZ was published. Now, if I’d never been suffering through the night sweats and the insomnia, would I have been published? Maybe,eventually. But writing every single night when I couldn’t sleep pushed me to finish the book in record time.

11. Do you outline your books or just start writing? I’m a registered nurse with a Master’s Degree in administration and Geriatric Psychology, so when I tell you I approach everything in life with a plan, you can believe it. I never start writing without a detailed plot first written, to guide me. I am a prime example of the scientific method in action. Now, do I ever deviate from that plotline? Yes, at times, if a better idea of where to take my characters interferes. But 99% of the time, I stick to my plot because it’s so thought out and detailed before I every hit a key stroke.

11. Do you have any hobbies and does the knowledge you’ve gained from these carry over into your characters or the plot of your books? If you can define cooking and baking as hobbies, then the answer to this question is a definitive YES! I was an only child from divorced parents and from a very young age had to learn to fend for myself after school because my mother worked such long hours to support us. Because of that, I learned to cook at a young age. Really cook. From scratch! As I got older, I learned how to bake – and again, I do it really well. I wrote an entire romance series – The Will Cook For Love books from Kensington/Lyrical Shine, about a professional chef and her family and used so many of my own recipes and incidents that had happened to me while cooking into that series. CHRISTMAS AND CANNOLIS is about a baker and when I pictured Regina rolling dough, and decorating wedding cakes, I could see my hands actually performing those moves. I think knowing how to cook and bake has brought a great deal of realism into my written works.

14. Have you started your next project? If so, can you share a little bit about your book? I’ve actually got the next 2 projects going at the same time. I’m working on books 2 and three in the Match Made in Heaven series right now, plus I’m branching my Will Cook For Love series into a new one about a private detective agency, titled Bros., Inc. Many of the characters in the WCFL series will make appearances in this one. So…I’m a little busy.
    15. Who is your favorite actor and actress?
15. Can you tell us a little about the black moment in your book? When Sonny barges into Regina’s apartment with information he “obtained” from one of his cronies about Connor, Regina is torn. She loves her father but she is in love with Connor and wants to trust him. Unfortunately, she catches Connor in a lie – or thinks she does. When the truth comes out, he storms out of her apartment and she is sure he is so hurt she will never see him again. Trust is extremely important to Connor and if Regina can’t trust his word, he doesn’t feel they have any future together.

17. What is your favorite reality show?Toss up: The Real Housewives of New Jersey and the Real Housewives of New York. I even allude to the shows in the book in the Christmas Eve scene.

18. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to write a series. Another great question. I’ve written 4 now and each time I start a new one I learn a little bit more on how to make them better. For the MacQuire Women, my first series, I had to go back and reread all the books so I wouldn’t makes mistakes with hair color, age, and time frame. That was a bit of a time suck. With The Will Cook For Love Series, I started a book bible that listed all the characters, their physical makeups and their present lives. In the San Valentino series, I learned how to do a genealogy chart, which helped tremendously in keeping the branches of the family correct – since the family is so big. With A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN I wrote a detailed backstory on each of the sisters, their parents and their grandmother, so I could keep the story consistent between each book.

I love writing a series, probably again because I love big families so much, having come from a  small one.

BLURB:

With Christmas season in full swing, baker Regina San Valentino is up to her elbows in cake batter and cookie dough. Between running her own business, filling her bursting holiday order book, and managing her crazy Italian family, she’s got no time to relax, no room for more custom cake orders, and no desire to find love. A failed marriage and a personal tragedy have convinced her she’s better off alone. Then a handsome stranger enters her bakery begging for help. Regina can’t find it in her heart to refuse him.

Connor Gilhooly is in a bind. He needs a specialty cake for an upcoming fundraiser and puts himself—and his company’s reputation—in Regina’s capable hands. What he doesn’t plan on is falling for a woman with heartbreak in her eyes or dealing with a wise-guy father and a disapproving family.

Can Regina lay her past to rest and trust the man who’s awoken her heart?

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EXCERPT:

I spotted my customer in the seat my mother indicated. His back was toward me, but I could tell he was tall from how much of him shot up from the chair. Since I didn’t know how to address him, I simply said, “Excuse me?” when I finally arrived at the table. I was all set to introduce myself and ask how I could help him, but before the words could form in my throat I was struck mute. Truly. I stopped short, my mouth falling open like unfilled cannoli shells, and no sound came out.

He turned to me at the exact moment a slice of midday November sunlight streamed through the window, landing right on him and surrounding his head in a halo of bright, brilliant light. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a choir of angels started belting out celestial high notes because the guy could have been a charter member of the Messenger of God club.

Facially, he looked a little older than my thirty-two, but not over the forty-year mark yet. Where my hair is the color of wet ink, his was a shock of silver threaded with faint stripes of peppery black above his ears. It looked so thick and touch-worthy, the tips of my fingers were actually tingling to clutch the ends and grab on. Eyes the color of threatening storm clouds—gray and tinged with pale shards of blue—peered up at me, a question pulling at their corners. Eyelashes most women had to pay for framed his lids naturally. His jaw was square, his cheekbones carved from marble by a master sculptor.

But his mouth—Madre di Dio, his mouth. It was about as perfect as two lips meeting in the center of a face could be. Full and thick with that natural rimmed outline women were forced to create with a liner pencil, it was the most kissable mouth I’d ever seen. Tinted the color of aged Barolo—my father’s favorite wine—ripe and smooth, full-bodied and intense, it simply stopped me in my tracks.

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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 was a finalist in the 2017 STILETTO contest for the same title.

In 2018, Peggy was a finalist in the HOLT MEDALLION Award and once again in the 2018 Stiletto Contest.

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?

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

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

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

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/peggy-jaeger

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JF1WQKT/

The Wild Rose Press: https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/6235-christmas-and-cannolis.html

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Peggy Jaeger will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f2811