Christmas & Canollis
by Peggy Jaeger
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GENRE: Contemporary Romantic Comedy
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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 Two:
My father stood at the head of the table, my mother seated next to him. As was also tradition, my father never sat down to eat in his shirt. A bright white wife-beater I knew he got by the gross at a discount dollar store a friend of his owned was his usual table garb. And by got by the gross, I mean it in the literal way. Pop had crates of the shirts stacked in the garage. It didn’t matter that the rest of us were dressed appropriately. Ever since my memory could be counted on, my father sat at a family table sans his outer shirt. Of course if we were at a restaurant or a fancy function like a wedding, he submitted and left it on for decency’s sake. But with family, all thoughts of decency flew out the storm windows. Since packing on a few extra belly pounds over the past couple years, he’d started wearing suspenders to keep his pants up because he hated the confining feeling of a belt.
“Hold hands and bow ya heads,” Pop instructed. We all complied. Pop looked up at the dining room ceiling. As a kid I’d always wondered if he could see God somewhere floating around the crystal chandelier. “Lord,” he said, focusing on the ceiling stucco, “we want to thank you for this food, made by the wife and paid for by my hard work. We want to thank you for our health, the roofs over our heads, the fact we got no bills, ain’t no one doing time right now, and most of all for the love we share as a family. Bless this food, Lord. Amen.”
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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.
The Wild Rose Press: https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/6235-christmas-and-cannolis.html
Please choose only one set of questions to answer:
Interview with Peggy Jaeger
1. What is your favorite part of this book and why?
I love this question. My absolute favorite scene in CHRISTMAS AND CANNOLIES to read – and write – was the one in which Regina finally asserts her independence from her domineering (yet loving) father and overbearing brothers. The San Valentino’s are such a tradition Italian/American family, with old world views and notions on morality, marriage, and lifestyles, that the thought Regina would have a man she is not married to sleep over in her apartment without the benefit of marriage sends shockwaves through them all. Even though that’s all Connor does – sleep – Regina’s father and brothers expect the worst and in their characteristic authoritarian and loud way, finally cause Regina to snap. She lashes out at them, verbally asserting her age, independence, and “grown-ass woman” state. All the while she is doing this her mother is clutching her rosary beads, rocking back and forth in her chair, and muttering prayers in Italian for Regina’s eternal soul. When Regina slams out of her parent’s house, leaving the men in her family openmouthed and dumbstruck, her sisters-in-law brimming with admiration, and her mother practically in a religious fugue state, I actually fist-bumped the air around me while I laughed out loud. This come to Jesus moment was the best part of writing the book for me, hands down. I loved being able to give Regina the wherewithal to stand up for herself and proclaim her sense of self from under her family’s thumb.
2. If you could spend time with a character from your book whom would it be? And what would you do during that day?
Well, of course I’d like to spend the day with Regina, in her bakery, learning from a master how to decorate cakes the way she does. It takes a certain kind of artistry and brilliant talent to be able to take powdered sugar, water, and Crisco, and mold it into something that not only looks beautiful but tastes amazeballs as well. I would follow Regina around for the day like an imprinted duckling, just absorbing her deep wells of baking knowledge. And then…I’d get to taste the things she makes.
3. If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?
The first IN DEATH Book by JD ROBB aka Nora Roberts NAKED IN DEATH. This was the book that started a series that is over 40+ books strong and shows no hint of ending. Plus, this is the first book that gave the romance reading world Roarke. Le Sigh!
4. Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination? If you mean by “real people” people I know personally, then no, they aren’t. But they are based on composites of real people. I usually spot a person I think looks interesting in a store or at a concert, and then watch them for a while to get a little glimpse of how they react to the world. Then I’ll write a pretend backstory for them in my head and if I think I can use them in a story I have swirling around in my to-be-written-files in my mind, I will. So the actual character comes from my imagination, while tiny bits of him or her may be glued together from strangers I’ve noticed.
5. What made you want to become a writer?
I honestly don’t know that it was a conscious decision to become one. I’ve always written. From the time I was given my first Dear Diary at 8 years old, I’ve written. Back then I thought my life was very boring, so instead of making daily entries about the things going on in my own life, I made up stories about a girl who had a stable loving family and who went on adventures all over the world. I still journal every day and I write a blog on my website 4-5 times a week, so you could say I’ve been a lifelong diarist and that pushed me towards writing my own brand of fiction.
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION
Peggy Jaeger will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
