Christmas & Cannolis Archives

Dec 17th Peggy Jaeger Author of Christmas & Cannolis

Happy holidays to all! Give a big welcome to Peggy Jaeger, author of Christmas & Cannolis. Have a seat and grab an insulated mug. I’ve got hot chocolate, hot cider and coffee. Choose your pot, they’re labeled. Pick your choice of a Snicker-doodle, Chocolate Chip or Peanut butter cookie from the plate. Yep, I baked them myself. Lets find out a little about Peggy and her Christmas & Cannolis. Thanks for joining us!

What inspired this particular story? I love big families. Since I’m an only child, that makes sense, no? Hee Hee. And I love the American/Italian family I created in 3 WISHES, the San Valentinos. They have a lot of branches on their family tree and I’ve mentioned the pseudo-wiseguy member, Uncle Sonny in both 3 Wishes and A Kiss Under The Christmas Lights, so I wanted to explore him and his family branch. Because family is everything to Sonny, he has a big one. 4 sons and his bellissima figlia, Regina. Regina has known heartache in her life but has been able to pick herself up and move forward with the help of her family. When a new man comes into her life that she’s willing to pledge herself to, her domineering – yet loving – family intervenes, comically though it is, and throws a wrench into her potential happiness. How Sonny deals with the new man is typical of a proud and over protective Italian father. I knew this needed to be a Christmas story because the holidays are all about love, family, and faith, and this family has all

What is your favorite Christmas tradition? When we decorate the four trees I have in my house every holiday season, I play Christmas CD’s all day while I bake and decorate. The smells coming from the oven warm my heart, as do the myriad of brightly decorated trees around my house.

Why did you choose the cover concept you did? Regina San Valentino owns her own bakery, so I knew I wanted at least some kind of bakery or baking scene on the cover. And since the title mentions my favorite Italian dessert – cannoli – I knew I had to have some kind of representation of it as well. Since this is a Christmas story about two people who find each other around the Christmas holidays, the character depiction needed to be festive and positive. What’s more festive than a pair of lovers, garbed in Santa hats, kissing for a romance cover?

Favorite holiday memory : The year my “Santa” left Rock’em Sock’em Robots for me under the tree. Quick backstory: I’m an only child and a girl, to boot, but my favorite toy to ask Santa for when I was 6 was Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots. I didn’t get it, so I asked again when I was 7…then 8….then 9. When I added it to my list on my 10^th Christmas, my mother told me that Santa wouldn’t be bringing that to me because I’m a girl and the toy I was asking for was a “boy toy.” Can you spell c-r-u-s-h-e-d? Fast forward 30 years and I told that story around the dinner table of my husband’s parents when we were visiting for the holidays. On Christmas morning there was a huge present under the tree with my name on it and when I opened it…yup! Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots. “Santa” brought the perfect present, 30 years after I asked for it. Love that man!

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? Like Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth, I’d want to be able to know when someone is lying. Of all the vices there are in the world – and there are a lot! – I hate lying most of all. I’d use my superpowers to force criminals to tell the truth, politicians to be held accountable for their lies, and force people in general who have hurt one another through vicious lying to be punished.

SPEED ROUND FOR A LITTLE ADDED FUN:

Speed Round (one word only answer): Yep, I know torture for a writer!<evil laugh>

Favorite Christmas movie: IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE 1946, Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed “Every time a bells rings, an angel gets her wings!”

Favorite Christmas book: Scrooge – gotta love a holiday redemption story!
Last Christmas or holiday book read: (HeeHee) my own, CHRISTMAS AND CANNOLIS (!)
Favorite color: green
Stilettos or flipflops or elf shoes: stilettos
Coffee or tea or hot chocolate: WATER!
Ebook or audiobook or paperback: ebook
Pencil or pen or candy cane: candy cane

Favorite Christmas Carole or song: A Cool Yule, by Bette Midler

All-time favorite Christmas present: Rock ‘em Sock’em robots – long story, fav gift!

Favorite dessert: Death By Chocolate Trifle

Christmas Candy or Cake: Cake -always

Favorite thing to do to relax during the holidays Read by the fire

Champagne or gin or eggnog: None. I don’t drink alcohol

Paranormal or Historical: Regency

Wonder Woman or Top Model or Tinkerbell: Wonder Woman

Favorite Christmas or holiday TV show: The original Cartoon GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS ( again, gotta love a holiday redemption story!)

Hot or cold: cold

POV: third

I’d die if I don’t have: Diet Mountain Dew

Review or Not: review!

Tell us a little about Christmas & Cannolis!

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?

A peek between the pages of Christmas & Cannolis:

It had been a long, long time since a guy’s hands had been on me in anything resembling a carnal way. My ex had decamped to parts unknown five years ago after signing the divorce papers and I’d been so busy rebuilding my life that adding any kind of relationship to it wasn’t even a notion. Besides, with my hovering parents, one of whom worked for me while the other popped in daily to check up on their only daughter, I had enough on my plate fending off the men they wanted to introduce me to. Guys who, for the most part, had shady lifestyles, carried concealed, and owed my father innumerable favors. And by favors I mean the kind that usually get signed for in blood and paid back the same way.

Welcome to mia familia.

Buy Links: Amazon: WILD ROSE PRESS Nook

About the author:

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?ref=bookmarks

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

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

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

You-Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDR8RRIlssIyS0FYZWeGqsg/videos

BookGorilla: https://www.bookgorilla.com/author/B00T8E5LN0/peggy-jaeger/kcc