Chocolate Raspberry Magic – Cover Reveal

Sunday Snippet: Yep, you read that right.  CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY MAGIC, Releases April 7, 2021 BUT its available for preorder NOW!!  Yippee!  However my cover reveal is late due to my contracting COVID and being down for the count from Feb 11 to about now, I believe I’m among the living, or at least close.

Anyway take a peek at my absolutely fantastic cover for CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY MAGIC, part of  the One Scoop or Two Summer Ice Cream series AND fourth book in A Witch’s Journey Series.

A little bit about Chocolate Raspberry Magic:  Pssst. please don’t forget to preorder.

Prim and proper Trinity Shiloh is the assistant manager for Salem’s Wildlife Sanctuary. She hasn’t had much luck in the boyfriend department, but the new employee Paul is different. Deep and brooding she sees something special hidden below the surface. Besides she has secrets of her own.
Paul Thorp is a wounded Special Forces veteran now working in security and computer support. He’s fought hard to keep his demons in check and for the first time feels he is ready for a real relationship.
When a fire breaks out at Puffin Cove Rescue, they are called in to help with the recovery and ice cream social fundraiser. Sometimes things are not what they seem, and neither are people. When magic is unleashed, will what they learn bring them closer together or push them apart?

A sneak peek between the pages of CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY MAGIC:

As Trinity walked through the aftermath of the fire, she lifted the yellow and black caution tape and carefully stepped inside the building. Her gut clenched and that feeling of foreboding washed over her again. The farther she ventured into the burnt building the stronger the gut-wrenching feeling became. Something needs my help. This was a new sensation. She took a small flashlight out of her backpack, directed the beam over the scorched debris, and moved the rubble with her toe. Nothing.

One more sweep of the light and she’d return to the others. Probably not supposed to be here anyway. A weak squawk emanated from the far corner of the building. Picking up a scorched stick, she poked at the debris. A puff of smoke rose as she made her way to where the sound came from. Shining the light into the corner, she saw movement. She knelt down and carefully shifted the charred rubble. Laying on its side, head slightly raised, and using a wing in an attempt to right itself was a small parrot. Its little eyes locked on her for a moment before its head lowered to the ground.

Frantically, she glanced around, but there was no one in sight. How far had she ventured without telling anyone? The structure overhead groaned in warning. No time. “Okay little one, it’s you and me. I don’t have much experience at this, but I’ll do my best.” Shrugging out of her backpack, she unzipped it completely. “I’m going to scoop you up in my backpack and get help.” She didn’t raise her voice to call for help for fear of scaring the poor thing.

Clearing as much debris away from the bird as possible, she scooped up the parrot in her bag. Slowly she stood, so as not to jostle the little creature. Holding the bag gently against her chest, she picked her way across the downed wooden braces, charred remnants of cabinetry, and broken glass.

“Trinity, Trinity, where are you?” Paul’s worried voice pierced the air.

“Over here,” she called with relief directing the flashlight beam toward his voice. The wind shifted the burnt skeleton of the building emitting a squeeing sound of swaying twisted, wet wood. This section of the structure was in danger of collapsing.

“What the hell are you doing here? I’ve been searching all over for you. Didn’t you see the “Do Not Enter” caution tape?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake, then pulled her against him. “You scared me half to death.”

His concern was palpable as she braced the palm of her hand against his hard chest to keep him from further injuring the bird in her bag and as reassurance. Paul’s heart was beating like a trip hammer. Her gaze searched his face. Did the scent of charred earth and sight of destruction all around pull him into the black hole of PTSD? No I won’t let it happen. He has to help me get this bird to safety if its going to have any chance of survival.

Buy and Pre-Order Links:

Amazon USA – Amazon CA – Amazon UK – Amazon AU – Barnes and Noble – Ibooks

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Charlotte O’Shay Author of Always, Almond Fudge

Give a warm welcome to Charlotte O’Shay, author of Always, Almond Fudge.  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 Charlotte and her Always, Almond Fudge!

Okay Charlotte, tell us what you like in as few words as possible. 

Speed Fun round – What do you like?

Leather or lace?  Leather jacket with a lace camisole underneath

Black or red? Black boots, red fingernails

Satin sheets or smooth cotton? Smooth, cool cotton every time

Ocean or mountains? The ocean is everything- soothing to see, hear & smell. as a child, I once got lost in the mountains. Never mountains

City life or country life?  City

Party life or evening at home?  Home but I miss parties!!!

Dogs or cats? I admire the independence of cats but it’s dogs first, last, & always

What’s under your bed? the shoes I wore last night

Camping or hotel? Hotel. Poison ivy & mosquitoes love me

Road trip or staying at home? Road trip

Shopping or not? Not. Surprised you there, didn’t I? I’m short. Shopping is torture.

Picnic or restaurant? If there’s food involved, I’m there.

Bath or shower, alone or with someone? Shower always, only with an invited guest.

Bicycle or walk? Both

Watch a movie in theater or home TV ~ Home TV

Swimming pool or lake? Is an infinity pool overlooking a lake or a meadow too much to ask?

Dance or not? Dance all night

Sing or not? Sing. Karaoke is my thing

My thoughts on Always, Almond Fudge:

 

 

 

This is a cute short feel good read I truly enjoyed! On a long car ride to their annual seaside vacation, a mother recounts the true story of a wonderful family tradition involving Almond Fudge Ice Cream and the summer of 1941 her three children (twins girls and older brother Sebastian).

In 1941, it was love at first sight for 17 year old Meredith, working at an ice cream shop and Anthony  on his way to becoming a major league baseball player.  Something present-day young Sebastian dreams about. The story sparks interest in Sebastian. When he reads the love letters between his grandparents his attitude is changed. What happens next I’ll not tell.

Nor will I reiterate the blurb here, you can read it for yourself.

What I will say is Always, Almond Fudge a sweet summer tale with characters that were heartwarming and Ice cream.  Can’t go wrong with ice cream. Will the family tradition of Almond Fudge ice cream inspire a new generation?  You’ll have to read Always, Almond Fudge, which I highly recommend to find out. LOL

 

Tell  us a little about Always, Almond Fudge:

During the summer of 1941 in the shore town of Langford, Rhode Island, seventeen-year-old Meredith Franklin works as a server at Seymore’s Ice Cream Shoppe. When aspiring baseball player Anthony Fanelli strolls into the ice cream shop, his teasing banter leads to dreams of forever love.
Their whirlwind courtship comes to an abrupt halt on December 7, 1941, when America enters World War Two, forcing the couple to put their future on hold.
Decades later, a treasure trove of wartime letters details the romance of Merry and Anthony and the sacrifices of a generation.

A sneak peek between the pages of Always, Almond Fudge:

“I wish I could slow down time,” Anthony said.

“I wish I could speed it up,” Merry responded.

“I guess I agree,” he said on a chuckle. “If we lived in the future we would be married at least. Instead…” he rested his forehead against hers.

Merry grabbed his hand. Before he knew it they were in Seymore’s. And it didn’t matter that it was so cold they could see their breath outside, it didn’t matter that ice cream was the last thing they should be eating on Christmas Eve. Their gloved fingers were clumsy around the little wooden spoons but the almond fudge ice cream was as delicious as ever. Anthony had brought along a blanket which he wrapped around them. Lights twinkled all along Main Street and throughout town as far as the eye could see. Even the gazebo was strung with colorful gold and white lights.

Ice cream finished, they sat side by side, hands intertwined, eyes closed.

“Will you wait for me, Merry?”

“How can you ask such a thing, Anthony? Of course I will.” Tears, always at the ready these days, glistened on the tips of her eyelashes. “I will wait forever. I love you.”

Buy Links  Buy HERE

 

It’s been great having you with us today.  Good luck with Always, Almond Fudge

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Vanilla With a Twist by Peggy Jaeger

Give a warm welcome to Peggy Jaeger, author of Vanilla With A Twist. Part of The Wild Rose Press’s new fun summer series One Scoop or Two! Love ice cream don’t you?

Hey Peggy, I see you’ve brought guests with you?

Yeah, they had a bit of time to kill so here they are. Deacon Withers, hero  and Tandy Blakemore, heroine and ice cream shop owner, from Vanilla With A Twist

That’s wonderful! 

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 Vanilla With A Twist. First Deacon, come on over here and lets talk.

Tells us about the real you— I’m so boring it’s not even funny. Basically, I work. And I work. And I travel for work, and then work some more. Not a lot of free time for anything else like relationships or fun. I started my own engineering firm ten years ago and it’s grown so rapidly that all I do now is travel to meet with clients. I miss the days when I could make things hands-on, figure problems in a design out, or even just tinker.

Tell us three things we’d find if we looked under your bed? Dust, one slipper because I can’t find the other one, a dog earred copy of A Clockwork Orange that I start reading every year and never finish.

……What makes you laugh out loud? Slapstick comedy and really good, thoughtful puns. The kind you need to think about for a second and then go, yeah.

……What makes you angry? Physical, mental, and emotional violence of any kind, to any one.

      What event in your past has left the most indelible impression on you? I can remember it like it was yesterday, which – I’ve always heard – is a sure sign you’re getting old. Haha. I was seven and my mother’s vacuum cleaner went on the fritz. She called my father at work and told him he had his work cut out for him when he got home. Well, that night, I sat on the bench in his workroom in the basement of our house and watched as he took the entire thing apart. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was wrong, so he gave up, scooped me up to get ready for bed and told my mother he’d deal with it on his next day off. I always woke up before my parents did, so the next morning I snuck down into the basement to play with the fascinating parts my father had disassembled. By the time my folks woke up and came looking for me I had the motor back together and the vacuum was once again working. From that day forward anything that broke in our house was immediately given to me to fix.

  What do you most value? Honesty and hard work.

…..What do you sleep in at night? A bed. And that’s all I’m saying.

  What is the type of woman you want to spend the rest of your life with? I hadn’t considered this question fully before now, but I’d like to think the one I’m in love with. Feisty, strong willed, smart and with a backbone of steel. All that fiery red hair and freckles don’t hurt either.

      What do you consider most important in life? Having a purpose and feeling as if you’re making, or have made, a difference in the lives of others. Everything else that comes along falls from this.

      What is your biggest secret? You really don’t think I’m going to share that, do you?

It’s always worth a try! You’d be surprised at what people will reveal. LOL 

Step on over her Tandy,  It’s your turn in the barrel, so as to speak.

Who are you really? Just a small town girl who faced poor decisions straight on and lived to fight another day. That sounds way better than a farm girl who got pregnant at sixteen and never had a chance to leave her small time life.

Tell us three things we’d find if we looked under your bed?  A box of my son’s old report cards, some dust resembling tumbleweeds and a plastic container of the past six years’ worth of receipts.

……What makes you laugh out loud? Slapstick comedy like the Marx brothers and old back and white RomComs.

……What makes you angry? Conceit, arrogance, and people who think they are better than you are simply because they had more advantages in life. And bill collectors, although I think those make me more anxious than angry.

……What do you sleep in at night? Old t-shirts and sweat pants.

   Who were the biggest role models in your life? My only role model was my grandmother Blakemore. She was born and bred a farm girl, married a dairyman, and then helped my granddad build up a successful dairy farm business all the while keeping hearth and home alive. She never suffered fools, called a spade a spade and was loyal to a fault with her family. From her I got my excellent math skills and I learned at her knee how to make the best tasting ice cream in the world, using our family cow’s milk and cream.

What kind of man do you want to spend the rest of your life with?   Until recently I thought I’d never have a lifelong man to call my own. So I’d have to say the one who sauntered into my shop one sunny July day and stole my heart when he fixed all my broken machines for free. He’s smart, kind, well mannered ( much more than me) really listens to a person and doesn’t think five steps ahead of what he wants to say, but hears you out. Plus, he’s got all that tall, rangy good looking stuff going on, so there’s that.

  What kind of man would you never choose? Self absorbed, mean tempered and boring. I don’t care if he was is rich as all get out and I’d never have to work another day in my life. I’m not wasting my time with anyone with those qualities.

What is most important to you in life? Financial stability and making sure my son gets the educational advantages I didn’t, like college.

   What is your biggest fear? Bankruptcy.

Peggy, Tell us a little about writing Vanilla With A Twist.  Was it fun or difficult?  Do your characters always act as you expect? Are you a plotter, or fly (write) by the seat of your pants?

When the Wild Rose Press put out the call for a new summer series dealing with ice cream in all forms, I just knew I had to submit something. A small town romance with an older couple had been dancing around in my head for a while and once this storyline was made public, I knew what I wanted to write. It took a single day to plot it all out and another to find my character lookalikes on Pinterest. ( you can see that page here: https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/vanilla-with-a-twist/

Within 3 weeks the first draft was done, another week to polish, and then I submitted and received a contract in less than a month.

Peggy, tell us about Vanilla With A Twist.

Tandy Blakemore spends her days running her New England ice cream parlor, single-parenting her teenage son, and trying to keep her head above financial water. No easy feat when the shop’s machinery is aging and her son is thinking about college. Tandy hasn’t had a day off in a decade and wonders if she’ll ever be able to live a worry-free life.

Engineer Deacon Withers is on an enforced vacation in the tiny seaside town of Beacher’s Cove. Overworked, stressed, and lonely, he walks into Tandy’s shop for a midday ice cream cone and gets embroiled in helping her fix a broken piece of equipment.

Can the budding friendship that follows lead to something everlasting?

Buy Links:

Amazon  Nook   Applebooks

A sneak peek between the page of Vanilla With A Twist:

For a few moments, she regarded him with a look his mother would have called insightful. The corners of her eyes narrowed, she dipped her chin a hair, and she pulled her mouth into another appealing pout he was tempted to kiss.

“I bet,” she said after a long, drawn-out sigh, “you were the kind of kid who took apart clocks and fans and vacuum cleaners to see how they worked.”

“It was more washing machines and lawn mowers and anything with a motor, but yeah. I was.”

She shook her head, her own lips forming a lopsided grin. “Your poor mother.”

“She survived.”

Tandy rolled her eyes and shot her hands to her hips. “So it’s working again?” She thrust her chin at the ice cream machine.

“For now.”

“Okay, well, I can live with for now. And you think you know the real reason it’s been acting up?”

“I definitely do. But like I said, the water to the machine needs to be shut off to fix it.”

“Okay. Well, we close at nine.”

“I’ll come back a little before then. Get things ready. Is that okay with you?”

“I guess it’ll have to be.” She bit down on the inside of her cheek as her brows pulled together. “And you’re sure you want to do this?”

“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t offer, Tandy.”

Why her reluctance to have him help was such a turn-on was something he considered while he waited for his ice cream.

About the Author:

Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes Romantic Comedies about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them. If she can make you cry on one page and bring you out of tears rolling with laughter the next, she’s done her job as a writer!

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, she 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’s created the families she wanted as that lonely child.

When she’s not writing Peggy is usually painting, crafting, scrapbooking or decoupaging old steamer trunks she finds at rummage stores and garage sales.

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

As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go “What??!”

Social Media links:

Website: http://peggyjaeger.com/

Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger

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

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

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDR8RRIlssIyS0FYZWeGqsg/videos?view_as=subscriber

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peggyjaeger_author/

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggy-jaeger-296ab878/

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

Authors database: https://authorsdb.com/community/15814-peggy-jaeger

Triberr: https://triberr.com/tribe/strong-women–loving-men

It was wonderful having you with us today.  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Vanilla With A Twist!

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