A Cowboy Christmas by Shanna Hatfield
Happy Holidays to all! Give a big welcome to Shanna Hatfield, author of A Cowboy Christmas!
The jangle of spurs mingles with the jingle of sleigh bells in this celebration of Christmas—cowboy style!
It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with A Cowboy Christmas!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged A Cowboy Christmas, Cooking, Holiday, Non-fiction, Ranch Life, Shanna Hatfield by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
Interview Peggy Jaeger, Author of Can’t Stand the Heat!
Welcome Peggy Jaeger, author of Can’t Stand the Heat, third in the Will Cook For Love Series! Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Peggy and her newest release Can’t Stand the Heat. I truly enjoyed reading this book. Laugh out loud moments and shaking head moments at the teen girl character made the book for me.
Writing what you know can be easy, difficult, soul-sucking, and mind-bending. Writing about a personal experience you’ve had and incorporating it into your fiction is all those things and one more: intrusive.
Let me explain.
In my newest Will Cook For Love series book, CAN’T STAND THE HEAT, I have a secondary character, a
teenaged girl named Melora. Melora is a privileged child of divorced parents, a famous director, my hero Dominick Stamp, and her actress mother Flannery Adair. Melora’s been raised in the lap of Beverly Hills luxury, but with her mother’s past and sometimes erratic behavior, she’s had to adopt a more adult role than she’s equipped for age-wise. When Flannery is killed in a car crash and Dominick is severely injured, the young girl’s protected, spoiled life, changes. As a way of dealing with the emotional turmoil she’s thrown into, she develops a devastating eating disorder, specifically, anorexia with bouts of bulimia. In learning how to help his daughter, Dominick seeks out professional therapy for both of them and for most of the book we see his dedication in helping her heal emotionally and get healthy physically.
Writing a character with an eating disorder is an idea I’ve tossed back and forth for years but always shied away from because it hit so extremely close to home. But in creating Melora, I gave a voice and a face to someone battling the disease that I suffered from for over 30 years.
My bulimia started with an offhand remark by my father during one of my sporadic weekend visitations with to him. His mother had been a very famous fur model when she was alive and he said, offhandedly, to me, “If you lose a bunch of weight you could model and make some money for college. Not be such a financial burden on me.”
At twelve years old, hearing those words destroyed the very little self confidence I had and started me on a downward spiral where my weight went up and down sometimes 50 pounds at a time until I was in my forties. In a weekend I could gain eight pounds from binge eating, then lose ten with laxatives and vomiting. This cycle persisted for decades, exacerbated whenever any kind of emotional distress inched into my life.
With Melora, I was able to finally free the demons plaguing me by having her voice her concerns, her fears, even her anger at the circumstances she’s been forced to face at such a young age. With her words and actions, I was able to shine a light on a disease that waaaaaaay too many children/teenagers/young adults suffer from.
In all honesty, I’m still plagued with issues with food at the age of 57, and writing a character with an eating disorder based on my own experience has at equal times been freeing and mortifying. But as a writer, I need to be able to convey truth in the character’s motivations, movements, and thought processes so the reader believes what she’s reading. Literally, I need to walk in her shoes, talk in her voice.
Intruding into my own personal life and battles is, pardon the pun, fodder ( or food) for creativity.
Thank you Peggy. I’m sure a lot of us can relate to the issues you brought up in this book. In Peggy Jaeger’s delectable series, delicious food is just an appetizer for life’s main course: the kind of love that feeds your soul. At little about Can’t Stand the Heat.
Review: Can’t Stand the Heat!
This is the third book in the Will Cook for Love series. I’ve read Cooking with Kandy (first book) A Shot at Love (second book) and figured I would enjoy the third book, Can’t Stand the Heat as well. I was right.
What’s it about?
In order to get a chance at her own show, executive producer, Stacy Peters agrees to spend two months on a ranch in Montana wrangling a notoriously difficult director, Dominic Stamp. Yet things are not always as they appear. Underneath it all, he is a loving father to a teenage daughter with an eating disorder, and suffers from an injury received during an accident that killed his ex.
Stacy is a professional with a talent to calm and keep everything running smoothly, even when her words are twisted and motive questioned. Will Stacy’s personal and professional live survive? Will Dominic and his daughter see through the ruse created by the hateful diva? You’ll have to read the book to find out. I highly recommend Can’t Stand the Heat.
My Take on the Book.
I was invested in the characters and the story from the first page. So much so, that quite often I wanted to shake Dominic for being such a tyrant, but loved how Stacy stood up to him and befriended his daughter. I wanted to strangle the manipulative #%*# diva that was forever causing problems. I laughed out loud at some of the pickles Stacy, Dominic (Nikko) and his daughter got into. See what I did there, pickles – food—cooking book. You know you want to smile. LOL
BTW – Don’t miss the great recipes in the back of the book!
With three successful TV series under her belt, including her cousin Kandy’s, executive producer Stacy Peters is ready to helm her own show. But to make that happen, she has to do her network boss one favor first—spend two months on a ranch in Montana wrangling the notoriously difficult director of Beef Battles. Apparently, he eats producers for breakfast. Yet all Stacy can think when she meets the lean, rugged man is how hungry he makes her . . .
Dominic Stamp—Nikko to his very few friends—has had enough interference from TV newbies. And when Stacy climbs out of the car in Montana, he’s not convinced she’s even old enough to drive, much less produce his show. But he can’t deny that the long-legged blonde with the stubborn will and the dazzling smile whets his appetite. And as Stacy proves her talent with the crew and the budget alike, Nikko vows to prove to her that love is on the menu for both of them…
Buy links:
Amazon , Apple, Google, Kobo, and Barnes and Nobel.
A Sneak Peek Between The Pages of Can’t Stand the Heat!
“I wish you’d do that more often,” he said, his hand circling her upper arm as he turned her, slowly, back to face him.
“What? Leave?”
He stared at her a beat, the line between his brows deepening. “Smile.”
Flabbergasted, she stood, rooted.
“More specifically,” he added, “smile at me. You do at everyone else. From Dixon, to his son; the crew. Even Melora. Everyone, but me.”
“I—”
His grip tightened a little as he pulled her in closer, their torsos almost touching.
“Why? Why can you show everyone else that little piece of yourself, but not me?”
“I…I don’t know how to answer that,” she said. “I know I was thrust on you without you wanting me here. I know you don’t like me, I—“
“That’s not true. I didn’t want to like you,” he admitted. “There’s a difference. You’re a producer. A bottom line watcher. An annoying necessity. Liking you goes against the grain.”
At that she did smile, because she knew it was true.
“See now,” he said, as he slid his other hand up her arm to settle on the back of her neck, fingers curling up into her hair to hold on. “When you do that? When you smile at me like that, so openly, so…freely? I can’t think about anything else.”
A gentle tug and he had her head pillowed in his spread palms as he bent his own down to hers.
Through her glasses she watched the fine whiskey in his eyes blend with the ink of his pupils as they dilated.
“I haven’t been able to think clearly about anything for the past few days.” His mouth was a whisper from hers. His gaze skimmed from her eyes to her mouth and back again in one slow string of heat. “Except for this.”
She thought she’d be prepared for the feel of his lips on hers again. After all, she’d done little else but reminisce about their texture and taste for days. But she was wrong.
So wrong.
Nothing could have ever prepared her for the way the slight pressure he placed on the back of her neck as he brought her closer sent a shiver of such carnal delight down her spine she almost hummed. Or the way his breath, warm and full, felt as it washed over her cheeks. And she certainly wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of emotions he released within her when he quite expertly parted her lips and deepened the kiss, pulling at her very soul.
No, nothing in her life had equipped her with how to deal with Nikko Stamp’s kiss.
So she simply let go of all thought, fear, and concern, and surrendered to it.
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.
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/
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/peggy-jaeger
It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Can’t Stand the Heat!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged anorexia, bulimia, Contemporary Romance, Cooking, Eating Disorders by Tena Stetler with 5 comments.
Peggy Jaeger Talks Food & Passion’s Pallette
Give a warm welcome to Peggy Jaeger, author of Passion’s Palette, fifth book in the MacQuire Women series released today August 4th 2017! Happy release day Peggy!
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a homemade Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate and let’s find out a little about Peggy Jaeger and Passion’s Pallett.
Peggy, I’ve read a few of your books. I love the large noisy families and cooking that seem to be a common theme in most the books I’ve read. Do you like to cook?
Food and family play such major roles in my writing. It doesn’t take endless hours on an analyst’s couch to figure out where those two themes hail from. I am the only child of divorced parents and as a child I was a latchkey kid, a term I don’t think is used any more. It meant I was all alone, on my own, every day after school. My parents worked and my mom couldn’t afford a babysitter after I turned 8. My mother and stepfather didn’t usually arrive home until after 7 each night, so I had to fend for myself if I got hungry. Back then, putting together a seven course meal wasn’t going to happen, so I learned how to open a box of macaroni and cheese and not burn the pot when I made it! A few years down the road I’d elevated to making spaghetti and hand rolled meatballs. In my teens, I started experimenting with sauces. So, you can see this was procession of learning skills. My love of cooking developed and grew as I did.
I hated being an only child (still do!). I always wanted brothers and sisters, people my age living in the same house with me. Siblings I could learn from, maybe even teach something to – like cooking – who’d be there to support and love me. People I had a connection – a DNA connection – to.
Didn’t happen.
Oh, I know exactly how you feel! I’m an only child too, raised by a single parent. Wasn’t much fun. Sorry for the interruption, go on.
So, I married a man with a big family and started writing my own romance stories centering around families, their relationships, and their lives. I have to admit, it’s been fun.
I also learned to cook really well. I would never flatter myself and say I’m a “chef” but if I ever find the time, I think I’d like to go to cooking school to better my skill set. Most of what I learned about cooking I learned, first from cookbooks, and recently from cooking shows. God bless the food and cooking channels! And You-Tube! This is just one bookcase in my home that houses some of my 120+ cookbooks. You’ll even see on the very top a cookbook by my favorite author, Nora Roberts.
Luckily, I have a husband who can eat anything and is always up for trying a new dish.
In PASSION’S PALETTE, the 5th book in my MacQuire Women series, I tell the story of artist Serena MacQuire and veterinarian Seamus Cleary. This is the second prequel in the series and it goes back a little in time to the beginning of their lifelong love affair. In the book, Serena has come back to her childhood home for a much-needed rest and to start planning a mural she has been commissioned for. Her old nursemaid and housekeeper, Addie O’Malley is worried about Serena. The girl looks so exhausted and she’s way too thin, so Addie makes Serena’s favorite dish, veal piccata. It’s a relatively easy dish to make and it just screams comfort food. Served with mashed sweet potatoes or rice, it’s a delicious meal that feeds the soul. Just the thought of it warms Serena’s heart and gets her taste buds watering. The thought of Seamus Cleary does that, too!
Food plays such a big role in my stories because I believe there’s nothing stronger that holds a family together as sitting around a dining room table, sharing a meal…or two…or ten. We all have such busy lives that sometimes we lose touch with those who mean the most to us. Sitting at the table, discussing your day, sharing a meal that’s been made with love and care, is a gift we should give ourselves every day. Every single day.
And here’s my gift to you: Serena’s favorite recipe, Addie O’Malley’s Veal Piccata.
Ingredients:
8 small veal culets, pounded flat
2 eggs, beaten slightly
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons REAL butter ( never margarine!)
½ cup dry Sherry
1 Teaspoon lemon juice – or the juice of one lemon that you squeeze yourself!
2 Tablespoons capers ( you can eliminate these if you don’t like their pungent taste)
1 cup chicken stock
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt, to your taste
Ground white pepper, to your taste
Method:
- Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a shallow baking dish.
- In another baking dish, add the beaten eggs.
- Dredged the cutlets one at a time first thru the egg mixture, then the flour mixture, coating both sides with flour. The egg makes it stick to the cutlet
- Add the oil to a big sauté pan and heat until hot
- Cook the cutlets one or two at a time, 2-3 minutes per side until both sides are golden brown. Remove them from the pan and set them aside on an plate. Cover with aluminum foil to heel hot.
- For the SAUCE: add the chicken stock, Sherry, lemon juice and capers to the sauté pan and scrape off all the left over cutlet bits from the bottom of the pan into the mix.
- Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes or until the sauce has reduced by about a third. Add the butter and mix it into the sauce, then swirl the parsley through out right at the end. Add some salt and white pepper to you taste
- Place the cutlets on a large serving dish and pour the sauce over each piece, coating it.
- Serve and enjoy!
Tell us a about PASSION’S PALETTE
Talented and witty portrait artist Serena MacQuire is successful in everything but love. Her gift for capturing people on canvas is rivaled only by her fiery and legendary temper. A tragedy from the past keeps her heart securely locked away, preventing any man from getting close enough to claim it.
But Seamus Cleary isn’t just any man. After he left his professional football career to become a veterinarian, his bitter wife ended their marriage. Now, as he starts his life over in a new town, love is the last thing he’s looking for. The more he tends to Serena’s horses, though, the more he realizes her own heart needs tender care and healing as well.
Will he be the man who finally unlocks and claims her heart?
How about a sneak peek between the pages of Passion’s Palette?
With a hip resting against the tabletop, he browsed through her paints and brushes, lifting one color pot, then another. “So. You’re an artist.”
She nodded.
“What do you paint?”
As he opened and closed the pots, Serena observed his hands, silently assessing the length and width of his fingers. Her mind registered the dexterous movements of each action, the deliberate, studied way his hands performed each task.
“Portraits, mostly.”
His eyebrows rose. “This is pretty big equipment for a portrait. Where do your pictures hang? In castles?”
“Three do,” she told him, charmed when his neck reddened. “But this stuff is for a mural I’ve been commissioned to do for a hospital.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Impressive. You must be good.”
Allowing a smidgeon of playfulness to creep into her voice, Serena gave him a shrug that rivaled his own and repeated his words back to him. “Better than some. Not as good as others.”
He returned her smile with one of his own.
Serena’s heart giddyapped.
Buy Links
More 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 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/
I can’t tell you how many times I wondered while reading your books, if you were really from a big family. You answered so many of my questions, so glad you stopped in. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Passion’s Palette.
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Artist, Contemporary, Cooking, football, MacQuire Women series. Passion's Palette, Peggy Jaeger, Piccata, recipe, Romance, veterinarian by Tena Stetler with 23 comments.
