Welcome contemporary romance author, Peggy Jaeger... *GIVEAWAY*

Hi Peggy! Welcome to my blog - I'm looking forward to catching up with you and learning more about your new release, A Shot At Love! Let's start with my questions...

1.) What did you want to be when you grew up?

What a great question!!! From the time I was very small I wanted to be two things: a nurse and a writer. The whole idea of taking care of someone who was sick came to me when I was watching my favourite show at the time, JULIA, about a nurse. I loved what she did and wanted to do the same thing. I’ve always been a writer since the age of 6 when I was given a lock and key diary. I never wrote a word about me in it. Instead, I made up stories and wrote them in those pages.

2.) Coffee, tea or hot chocolate? None. I’m a Diet Mountain Dew girl all day, every day.

3.) What genre do you typically read? Why?

I read a wide variety of books from cozy murder mysteries and thrillers, to autobiographies and romance. My favourite genre in romance is contemporary because I like stories that take place in the here and now. I like reading about people I could, potentially, meet or know in real life. I’m very nosy and I’m honest about it. I like people. I like knowing about them, how they think, what makes them, well, them!

4.) Share a favourite childhood memory. This one is hard because I really don’t have any happy childhood memories. Let’s just say I grew up in a ….challenging… household, and leave it at that.

5.) Do you have any shameless addictions? ie. Tea, Books, Shoes, Clothes? Well, to go back to question 2, I’m a ridiculous DMD drinker!! Truly. I can pack away about 2 liters a day if I don’t watch it. But my real addiction – the one I may need therapy for some day – is my cookbook collection. I have over 130 cookbooks scattered all over my house. Some date back to the 19^th century and were purchased at church fairs and sales. Others are present day celebrity cookbooks. Most are tried and true family recipe books that are dog-earred and much loved.

6.) What do you think is the biggest challenge of writing a new book?

Another great question!! For me, the biggest challenge is making the readers care about the characters as much as I do. As a writer, you love your people. You kinda have to, otherwise why write about them? But I lovelovelove my characters, never more so then when I’m telling their stories. Translating how I feel about them to the page and hoping the reader feels for them the same way I do is a challenge. A serious one, because if you don’t like the people in the story, you’re not going to read the book. Plain and simple. You can think your character is the most sympathetic, loving, empathetic person in the world, but if you don’t write her correctly, a reader may just see her as boring and flat. The challenge for me, the writer, is to make you, the reader, love that person as much as I do.

7.) Do you aim for a set amount of words/pages a day?

When I’m working on a new book I aim for a minimum of 2500 words a day. Most days I exceed that. And that’s just writing – no editing, no changing anything ( unless it’s not working). I write the entire book through once, beginning to end, and then when it’s completed, I start to edit. This works for me. Many other writers edit as they go. Because I’m a ridiculous plotter, I don’t have to worry about getting diverted from my course, so I don’t need to change things along the route.

8.) What are your thoughts on writing a book series?

1 simply adore writing a series! I’ve done 3 so far and I love them because they’ve all been about families. I grew up as an only child of divorced parents who worked all the time. I was alone a lot. A. Lot. From a very young age I dreamed of what it would be like to live in a big, loving, loud, loyal and supportive family. When I started writing romantic fiction, I wrote those families, and I’ve never looked back. Telling each family members’ story is a labor of complete love for me.

A Shot At Love

by Peggy Jaeger

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance

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BLURB:

Nothing’s impossible when love is on the menu. In Peggy Jaeger’s luscious series, the only thing more tempting than a delicious meal is a truly delectable romance . . .
Look for exclusive recipes in each book!

Photographer Gemma Laine is looking for arresting faces on the streets of Manhattan when her camera captures something shocking—a triple murder. In that moment, she becomes a target for the mob—and a top priority for a very determined, breathtakingly handsome, FBI special agent. With deadlines to meet and photo shoots on her calendar, Gemma chafes at the idea of protection, but every moment she spends under his watchful eye is a temptation to lose herself in his muscular arms . . .

With two of his men and one crucial witness dead, Special Agent Kyros Pappandreos can’t afford to be distracted. But Gemma is dazzling—and her connection to Kandy Laine’s high-profile cooking empire makes her an especially easy mark for some very bad people. Keeping her safe is much more pleasure than business, but as the heat between them starts to sizzle, Ky is set to investigate whether they have a shot at love . . .

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EXCERPT

“How many do I have to hit for you to be satisfied?”

Ky looked over to where she stood to the side of the garage, the Glock in her hand, its barrel aimed at the ground. He’d watched her load the clip, then weigh and balance the gun in her hand like she did it every day of her life.

“All of them. You might never get a second chance if a first bullet misses an attacker, so yes. All of them.”

She moved to the line in the grass he’d drawn for her to shoot from, mumbling something he couldn’t hear, but guessing it wasn’t something complementary.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yup. Any particular order you want me to hit them in?”

He had to bite back the grin threatening to fly free at her snooty, disgruntled tone.

“Your call.”

Gemma nodded and took a stance. She flexed her shoulders and neck, the motion so subtly erotic, it made his pulse quicken, and she shifted her weight. From his viewing position behind her, he appreciated just how tall and lean she was. Narrow shoulders were relaxed and tapered down into a waist no bigger than a hand span. How many times in the past few days had he thought what it would be like to slip his own hands around that tiny area and pull her in close? Too many for prudence, that was for sure.

The first bottle, the one he’d put the farthest from them, shattered into a thousand fragments. Before he could take a full breath, she’d hit the next two.

The final three closer ones she dispatched with equal ease.

When she turned to him and asked, “Satisfied?” in a tone filled with condescension, Ky had to physically restrain himself from running to her, lifting her up in his arms, and kissing the gorgeous smirk off her mouth.

Because he’d discovered how much he liked sparring with her—go figure that out—he pursed his lips and nodded. “Not bad.”

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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 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/