#SundaySnippet #SnippetSunday 2.11.2024
With Valentine’s Day in just a few days, I wanted to remind everyone about the very first novella I ever wrote that was published under the Wild Rose Press’s CANDY HEARTS series, 3 WISHES.
Do wishes have expiration dates?
Valentine’s Day is chocolatier Chloe San Valentino’s favorite day of the year. Not only is it the busiest day in her candy shop, Caramelle de Chloe, but it’s also her birthday. Chloe’s got a birthday wish list for the perfect man she pulls out every year: he’d fall in love with her in a heartbeat, he’d be someone who cares about people, and he’d have one blue eye and one green eye, just like her. So far, Chloe’s fantasy man hasn’t materialized, despite the matchmaking efforts of her big, close-knit Italian family.
But this year, for her big 3-0 birthday, she just might get her wish.
Here’s a little bit from his sweet romcom….
At about five minutes of ten, I was almost ready to turn the Closed sign on the door when it opened. I heard Janie’s breath hitch and turned from where I was sweeping up. Staying open late is always a risk, with the thought thieves will invade at the end of the day.
If the guy standing at the door glancing around the shop was a thief, then Dio mio, I wanted to be robbed.
About six foot, his hair was the color of a deer’s pelt, with autumnal golds and browns shot together in a glorious patchwork that grazed the collar of his jacket and curled a little at the ends. He wore a faded brown bomber jacket over a shirt I couldn’t see, but he had shoulders almost as wide as my doorway. A pair of well-worn jeans covered his mile-long legs, and the fabric on the stress points at his knees was practically white.
“We’re about to close,” I heard myself say. “Can I help you?”
It was at that moment he looked over at me.
His face could have been sculpted by Da Vinci or Michelangelo. A broad, smooth, forehead housed naturally arched eyebrows I knew some of my gay guy friends would have paid a fortune to have on their own faces. His cheeks were carved from marble, high, smooth, and deep. And his mouth, mother-of-God, his mouth. Full, thick, beautiful lips sat perfectly over a chin with a dent you could shove a button into and have it stay put.
“Sorry,” he said, those fabulous lips pulling up a little shyly at the corners. “I got stuck at work and couldn’t get here until now. I’ll be quick. Promise.”
So here’s the thing: the guy was gorgeous. But even if he’d looked like a frog with raw antipasto smothering his face, I would have dropped to my knees when he opened his mouth. Warm honey, a shot of raw whiskey, and a little hot puff of smoke wafted from his mouth like a fine and rare brandy being decanted.
Intrigued? Why not read it for VALENTINE’S DAY? Here’s the universal link so you can get it anywhere digital books are sold: 3 WISHES
And check out the other San Valentino romcoms if you like 3 WISHES:
Filed under 3 Wishes
#SaturdayShare 2.10.24
Just a quick reminder that I’ll be appearing at the GOFFSTOWN LIBRARY on February 13th to talk about all things romance related.
I’ll be reading from my newest book plus, as an added bonus, talking about my soon-to-be-released suspense RETRIBUTION. If there’s enough time, I’ll be reading a little bit from that one, too!!!
I hope if you’re in the are you can come down, sit and listen for a while, and join me!
Here are the details: https://bit.ly/3vHqQp5
~ Peg
Filed under Writing
#fridayfive 2.9.2024
Today I want to debunk a few misconceptions, so my Friday five is 5 myths about being a writer.
- writers are master plotters. When half the group pants a book and half plots, and a combination of the two PLANTS a book, this one is just silly. No one writes in the exactly the same way as another.
- we are arrogant and have inflated egos. **Snort** Really? People believe this? Oh if they only knew the depths of my daily despair about my inadequacy as a writer!
- we don’t care about reviews. We all say this, but the reality? Yeah, we do. A lot more than we should, but we do.
- writer’s block is just laziness. This one makes me mad. Although I’ve never suffered from it I have writer friends who have and it’s debilitating when the muse takes a holiday. It’s real, people. It’s not laziness.
- writers make loads of money. *Snort ( again)* If I wasn’t married I’d be out working my butt off at a day ( and probably night) job. Let’s put it this way: tax season is upon us and I’ve got no worries about owing anything to Uncle Sam.
Filed under #fridayfive
#tbt 2.8.2024
Each Thursday I’ve been revisiting a blog post I did back in the day.
Today’s #TBT is one of the top 5 days of my life. Read on and you’ll find out why….
From August 7, 2017
At 57 years old, you’d think I’d be beyond hyperventilating when I see a “celebrity.” Yeah…not so much.
My very first RWA in 2014 I actually burst into tears when I met and spoke with Nora Roberts. Not one of my finest, adult moments, but there was truly so much emotion stored up in me concerning her that when I actually got the chance to speak to her, I lost it. Like a two-year-old. She was gracious, lovely, and held my hand. I don’t think I washed it for 2 whole days!!!, but that might not be true because I blacked out after meeting her! and have no memory of the rest of the day!!
You can just make out the tears still wet on my cheeks in this picture her lovely assistant, Laura, took.
Anyway.
Fangirling. Yeah, it’s a thing. A real thing. Even though I’ve been to 4 RWA conferences and 1 RT, I still get a little queasy butterfly feeling in my tummy when I see my writing idols casually walking around a hotel as if they were, well, normal people, not romance icons. Here are just a few of my absolute meet-favorites from this year. And I’ll tell you honestly, I really struggled not to cry when I met each of them.
First, one of my newest favs, Lauren Layne.
If you haven’t read any of her Wedding Belles series, or any of the Stiletto books, get yourself over to Amazon and get a bunch. You will not be disappointed.
Next, the amazeballs, uber-talented Jennifer Probst. I actually carted her book WRITE NAKED with me to Orlando because I knew she was going to be there and I simply had to meet her to autograph it.
I sat in on one of her workshops as well, but don’t ask me what she said. I was too busy pinching myself because I was sitting in the same room with her!
And look what she wrote to me!!!!!!
Okay, this next picture makes me giggle every time I see it! The incredible, sweet, absolutely lovely and funny Jill Shalvis was sososososos gracious when I basically interrupted her from eating at the Rita’s and begged – yes begged – for a picture.
Can you see how giddy I am??!!!
And at the Literacy signing I bothered, er, spoke, to her again when she was with another of my favs, and Jill’s BFF, RaeAnne Thayne. Honestly, these two women are graciousness incarnate!!
last but certainly not least, I was able to “hang” with another of my favorite authors, Marianne Rice, who was attending her first RWA. We were having a good natured contest between us to see how many “big names” we could get to take selfies with us. Marianne WON, hands down!!! She got the fabulous Rachel Gibson!!!! And Susan Elizabeth Phillips!!! Le sigh….maybe next year.
So, don’t ever be upset or embarrassed if you’re a fan girl, because we’ve all been there!! Some of us still are, despite our —ahem--senior ages!
Filed under #throwbackthursday
#Comingsoon
So, I’ve been hinting ( or hitting you over the head, you decide which, lol!) with notices about my upcoming 4.23.2024 release of RETRIBUTION. Today, I decided to do a little background story about how this project came to be.
If you’ve read anything by me before you should know this book is a huge departure from the lighthearted, small-town, romance books I usually write.
And you may be upset by that. I get it. This book is so not a lighthearted rom-com.
But before I ever wrote a word in the romance genre, I wrote short stories and books about death, dying, and serial killers.
I’m the girl Netflix invented the serial killer binge-watch for, lol.
Serial killers, and people who murder in general, have always fascinated me ever since I was in nursing school. I attended Hunter College, Bellevue School of Nursing and one of the years I was a student, a group of foreign nationals held a failed terror attack on New York. Several of the injured would-be-terrorists were treated in Bellevue’s ER and then sent to the prison wing of the psych lockdown unit. Having narrowly missed becoming a statistic, I found myself fascinated about what would compel someone to kill like this. The pseudo-vigilante group, the Guardian Angels, took up residence outside my dorms during this time as a protection blanket for the students.
In my junior year of nursing school, Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon. That day will live in my mind forever as the day I decided that psychiatric nursing was calling my name. Unfortunately, I already had a job in a medical/surgical unit waiting for me when I graduated. But while working, I learned everything I could about the criminal mind, and centered on killers and serial killers, what made them tick, why they needed to kill, and how their minds worked.
I know: Not exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from someone who writes Happily Ever Afters.
RETRIBUTION was written almost 20 years ago on my very first home computer. At the time, I wrote it simply for me, and it was called VINDICATION. Once done, I left it in a file on my desktop and never thought about it again while I continued writing more grisly short stories. Many of them were published in short story magazines of the day and last year I compiled a collection of them in the book Death Between the Pages the same time, Kindle Vella was launched and I thought, why not put up the first real book I’d ever written?
So I did.
The response was wild. Good reviews- and some really nasty ones – later, I decided to update the story and publish it to print.
I won’t be abandoning my sweet-to-sexy romance stories any time soon, so don’t worry. But I really needed to get this one out into the reading world, so…
When I have preorder or order links, I’ll post. For now, here’s the cover and blurb:
6 teenage girls have been kidnapped, brutalized, and murdered in the Washington DC area and the FBI’s SPCD Unit – the Sexual Predators of Children Profilers – are nowhere close to finding the monster responsible. How are the victims chosen? How does the killer find them, contact them, lure them into his sick web? Questions the team has no answers for.
When a high-ranking US Senator’s daughter is the next victim, SPCD team leader, Tucker Petrie, is forced to call upon retired profiler — and his last partner — Kella O’Brien for help. Kella’s been out of the game for 10 years, but her expertise and insights into a serial killer’s mind are unparalleled. If anyone can discover who this madman is, it’s Kella.
But as the team rushes to prevent another young girl’s death, clues the killer leaves behind have Kella wondering if his endgame is all about…her.
~Peg 1/24
Filed under #retribution
#fridayfive 2.2.2024
Today’s five are my favorite one-liners in movies. I’m a sucker for a one-liner, throwaway line! In my writing, I try to be creative and give my characters really good, memorable one-liners. Sometimes I get it right; sometimes…not so much, LOL.
But these are the lines that have stuck with me forever.
- “Get off my plane” AIR FORCE ONE
- “There’s no place like home” THE WIZARD OF OZ
- “Leave the gun, take the cannolis” THE GODFATHER
- “I would die for you” ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES
- “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” NOTTING HILL.
And I have to add one more because I quote it sososo much.
“I ain’t got time to bleed.” PREDATOR
Filed under #fridayfive
