I’m over on the Roses Of Proses website today blogging about how the season effects my writing.
Stop by. Here’s the link:
Category Archives: Contemporary Romance
A visit with Clair Brett
Hey all! I’ve chatting with NHRWA sistah Clair Brett today about falling in love in a love story. Stop on by and share your thoughts.
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, New Hampshire, NHRWA, Romance, Romance Books, RWA
Something new…
You all know I loathe self-promotion and marketing. I like the end results of it, but I’m still very uncomfortable trying to convince people to buy my books. Because of that basic insecurity, I’ve tried to find other ways to engage readers to purchase my work.
One of those ways is a giveaway on Goodreads. So, from May 19 ( my birthday!) until June 3, if you click on the following link you can enter to win a signed copy of my newest book THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. It doesn’t cost anything to enter and hey, you may win!!
Please support this humble writer!
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/138470-there-s-no-place-like-home
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME< book 2 in The MacQuire Women Series
Blurb:
Symphony pianist Moira Cleary comes home after four years of touring, exhausted, sick, and spiritually broken. Emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of someone she trusted has left her gaunt, anxious, and at a crossroads both professionally and personally.
Moira’s best friend, veterinarian Quentin Stapleton, wants nothing more than to help Moira get well. Can his natural healing skills make it possible for her to open her heart again? And can he convince her she’s meant to stay home now with the family that loves her – and with him – forever?
Excerpt:
“Remember when your cousin Tiffany got married in the backyard here?”
Confused, Moira nodded.
Quentin rubbed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “When the Reverend told Cole ‘you can kiss your bride,’ and he swooped her off the ground, spun her around and kissed her silly? Remember what you said?”
“I think I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.”
He nodded. “The exact quote was, ‘I hope someone kisses me like that some day.’”
Her grin was quick at the memory. “Pat snorted and said I’d better be satisfied with licks from the horses and Rob Roy because no guy was ever gonna kiss me.”
“He wasn’t known for tact back then.” He rubbed a hand down her back as he held her. “Remember what happened later on behind the barn?”
Because she did, she couldn’t stop the heat from spreading up her face like wildfire. When she nodded again, he said, “You wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed like that and since I was your best friend, you thought I should be the one to do it, because you – quote – felt safe with me – unquote.”
“What was I? Eleven?”
“Thirteen. And I was more than willing. Almost broke my heart in two when you said afterward, ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about.’”
“Q—”
“Hush.” He kissed her forehead. “Ever since that day, all I’ve wanted is a second chance. Now,” he pulled her body closer, wrapped both arms around her small waist, his hands resting just above the dent in her spine. “We’re both a little older, a little more mature. Some of us are much more experienced—”
“And conceited.”
“Experienced,” he said, the laugh in his voice quiet and seductive, “and things can be so much better.”
Barnes and Noble ;http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theres-no-place-like-home-peggy-jaeger/1121798145?ean=2940151238489
The WIld Rose Press:http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=191&products_id=6237
Promoting literacy
I read at an early age and so did my daughter. In truth, I think the best gift I ever gave her was the gift of being able to read. Being carried away by a good story and getting lost in a fabulous book have provided me with innumerable hours of pleasure and escape. The ability to read, to lose oneself in a story, to imagine a world dictated by descriptions, is an amazing joy.
I discovered an absolutely appalling statistic today: the number of adults in the US who can’t read is estimated at 32,000,ooo. Over 70 % of inmates are illiterate and 19% of high school grads can’t read at a functional level.
This is in the United States of America! That number should be as close to zero as possible, but unfortunately, it isn’t.
I’m sure any sociologist or anthropologist worth their salt could tell you why this is so, but I don’t care about the reasons. I just want that number to be zero.
What kind of a society are we that accepts our people can’t read? What does it say about our educational system that allows 1 in 4 of its children to grow to maturity without the ability to read? I will admit to being totally floored by these stats. Perhaps it is because I live in a moderately affluent community where school is valued. Maybe its because of my color and race and the fact that I have access to good schools, good teachers, libraries, and book stores. It could be because I value reading so much, I naively assume everyone else does.
Again, the reasons seem irrelevant when you consider the facts.
This is my soapbox request for the day: If you’re reading this blog – congratulations, you can read! Now, pass that gift along. Read to your children, encourage them to read back to you, aloud. Take a kid to a library and show him the wonders to be found there. Get lost with a kid in a bookstore for hours. Make sure that reading is part of their core curricula in school. Give a child the gift of your favorite book when you were a kid, and then discuss it!
My wish for the future: 100% literacy in the greatest nation on earth. That would be us, kids, the United States of America.
Reading: it’s a good thing.
More statistics about illiteracy in America:
http://literacyprojectfoundation.org/
http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women
The Pressure of Opening Lines.
Recently, during a weekly on-line author chat with the publisher and editors of The Wild Rose Press, the topic up for discussion was how to hook a reader from the very first line/page of your book. It’s important to establish this hook because the reader spends on average 3 seconds deciding whether or not to buy the book. If you’ve only got 3 seconds – or less (Egads!) – you need something that’s got WOW FACTOR all over it – be it a great opening line or paragraph. You must engage the reader and compel them by doing so to purchase the book. I know for myself I have picked books up at the bookstore, read the back blurb and been intrigued enough to read the first few lines. Many times I have not purchased the book because the hype in the back didn’t translate to the story on the page. The hook was more a jab ( heehee) and didn’t land well with me.
Can you tell I watched Rocky last night? Sheesh!
Anyway…this got me to thinking: what are some of the most memorable lines in books?
Google and Wikipedia are quick, fun tools that have lists compiled for every conceivable thing. So I typed into a search, Best Opening Lines in Books and was virtually assaulted (get it?!) with book lines.
Here are some I recognized:
- “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
- “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
- Call me Ishmael – Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 1851
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen – George Orwell, 1984 ( 1949)
- Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. – Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway ( 1925)
- It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. – Sylvia Plath, the Bell Jar ( 1963)
- In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together, – Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter ( 1940)
- As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous verminous bug. – Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis ( 1915)
Everyone of these opening sentences immediately draws the reader into the story by giving them something to think about and a question or two to ask.
In the case of Moby-Dick, Call me Ishmael are three of the most recognized words in literature. Who is Ishmael? Why are we to call him that – does he really have another name but just wants to use Ishmael? Who is he talking to? These natural queries make you want to get answers to satisfy your curiosity. And the way to satisfy that curiosity is to…read the book!
In the 1984 line…. the clocks were striking thirteen… the reader immediately knows something is off because clocks DON’T ( as a rule) strike thirteen. Why are they doing so in this story? And what is the significance of them striking thirteen times? Is something going to happen? Or did it already and the thirteen is the announcement of it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thinking back on the first lines I’ve written, I know in my heart some of them haven’t been filled with the wow factor – something I will work on arduously in 2015. With the plethora of books to choose from on-line, in bookstores and the library, a writer has to stake their claim on the reader’s attention IMMEDIATELY. No small task, but a worthwhile endeavor. And the payoff is a memorable book ( and a sale!)
Here’s the first line of my new release THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, available right now!!
Moira Cleary paid the taxi driver and took her first full breath in over twenty-four hours.
To find out WHY– buy the book! Here are the links:
The Wild Rose PRess: http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=1235
Barnes and Nobel :http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theres-no-place-like-home-peggy-jaeger/1121798145?ean=2940151238489
Filed under Characters, Contemporary Romance, Literary characters, Romance, Romance Books
Old hat at this…I think not
So, tomorrow my newest addition to the MacQuire Women Series, THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME is released. It is a scant two months since book 1, SKATER’S WALTZ went out into the book reading universe and you might think I am still basking in the wonderful-ness of the first release and that this new one is sort of taking a back burner to it.
Yeah, NO!
I feel as excited and giddy today as I did on March 3. ANY book, any work, any story I have sent into the world for public consumption has thrilled me. To know that tomorrow people will be reading about Quentin and Moira and how they fell in love is beyond exciting for me. The personal responses I have received from people who have read the first book is humbling and mind blowing. Even my father in law read it and I know he did because he was able to discuss things that happened in the book!!!
I remember my mother in law once told me she loved my husband ( her firstborn) so much she didn’t know if she had any love left over for another child. But when her first daughter was born, she realized a mother’s love knows no bounds or limits. She loved each child equally and thoroughly.
That’s the way I feel about my new release. I love the story and the people in it as much as I loved the first one.
So, I hope if you read There’s No Place like Home you will feel the same way I do.
Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:
“Remember when your cousin Tiffany got married in the backyard here?”
Confused, Moira nodded.
Quentin rubbed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “When the Reverend told Cole ‘you can kiss your bride,’ and he swooped her off the ground, spun her around and kissed her silly? Remember what you said?”
“I think I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.”
He nodded. “The exact quote was, ‘I hope someone kisses me like that some day.’”
Her grin was quick at the memory. “Pat snorted and said I’d better be satisfied with licks from the horses and Rob Roy because no guy was ever gonna kiss me.”
“He wasn’t known for tact back then.” He rubbed a hand down her back as he held her. “Remember what happened later on behind the barn?”
Because she did, she couldn’t stop the heat from spreading up her face like wildfire. When she nodded again, he said, “You wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed like that and since I was your best friend, you thought I should be the one to do it, because you – quote – felt safe with me – unquote.”
“What was I? Eleven?”
“Thirteen. And I was more than willing. Almost broke my heart in two when you said afterward, ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about.’”
“Q—”
“Hush.” He kissed her forehead. “Ever since that day, all I’ve wanted is a second chance. Now,” he pulled her body closer, wrapped both arms around her small waist, his hands resting just above the dent in her spine. “We’re both a little older, a little more mature. Some of us are much more experienced—”
“And conceited.”
“Experienced,” he said, the laugh in his voice quiet and seductive, “and things can be so much better.”
Get your copy here or order it at your local bookstore:
Buy Links for THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1J1f3OZ
The Wild Rose Press: http://bit.ly/1GmM1Je
Barnes and Noble Nook : http://bit.ly/1JjMUG7
Challenges…
I love a writing challenge. That’s why I participate in NANOWRIMO every year, and whenever my local chapter of RWA holds a writing challenge, I am raring to go.
Personal challenges are another thing entirely.
Backstory. Last Spring I attended a fund raiser for Project Graduation titled DANCING WITH THE KEENE STARS. It was exactly like it sounds – the television show DWTS, just a local edition with people in my community as the “celebrities” or Stars. Everyone with me, including me, had an absolute blast. It was such a fun evening, that I volunteered to be a contestant the following year if they held it again.
Yeah, so. Be careful what you ask for.
I was asked, I said “Yes,” and I was thrilled.
Then the real work started. I am not a dancer. I barely have enough rhythm to keep upright when I walk (as evidenced by the fact I fall a lot. A lot.) It looks so easy SO EASY on television. The dancers get up, do a few steps, and there you have it.
Yeah, NO! I haven’t sweated, thought, or worked so hard at something in a very long time. I actually think the last thing I did that was as mentally and physically challenging was childbirth. And my daughter is 25!
Anyway, the real purpose of this entry was to say that challenges come in all forms, and in order to grow and thrive as humans, we need to take them up from time to time. Learning how to dance the cha-cha has been an enervating and exhausting thing for someone as sedentary (both in mind and body) as myself. I have to think logically, count ( not my strong suit!) and concentrate on so many aspects – head up, don’t look down, keep your shoulders square, smile. It’s a lot for someone like me who basically hibernates in a solitary writing room.
But having said all that, it is a challenge that I willing took on and I don’t have ANY regrets. I have learned a great deal about myself these past two months and wouldn’t change anything I’ve gone through. Well, maybe I’d lose a little more weight before starting, but that’s it! By challenging myself personally, I feel I’ve grown more as a person and a writer, because I have a million story ideas now concerning dancing. Ooo, baby!
If you’re in the neighborhood, here’s the link to get tix. Maybe I’ll see you there. Just don’t throw any tomatoes at me!!
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women
The Power of Friends
I don’t have many friends, but the ones I do have are keepers for life.
Oh, I have friends on Facebook, and followers on Twitter and Pinterest. People, even follow this blog ( thanks so much for doing so!) But real honest to goodness, give you a kidney if you needed it friends are few and far between.
But that’s okay. Like I said, the one’s I have are keepers.
As an only child, I grew up mostly alone. Parents at work all day and into the evening, I spent a great deal of time at the local library after school. The head librarian knew more about me than my family did. Books became my true friends. Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, even Miss Marple where the people I shared my life with. It sounds sad, but it wasn’t. I loved being in the library surrounded by words. It was so much better than being in school surrounded by bullies who taunted and tortured me verbally because I looked different, was different, had a different last name than my mother ( this was the 60′ and 70’s – not too many divorces yet among the populous). Books were my friends, their characters my peers and teachers.
Okay, so maybe it was a little sad, but believe me, I never felt like it was.
When I got older and my outer shell of protection hardened, it was easier. I was still different than most, but I started to discover people who were similar in their own differences to me. Book readers; smart kids; creative kids. Kids who didn’t care what people thought about them. Kids who would stand up for me, and me for them, against the bullies and clique’y kids. All the knowledge I’d gleaned from those books I’d been surrounded with helped me discover the person I truly was. The kid on the inside who lived on the outside and wanted nothing else but to belong.
In a word, me.
No longer did I wait until people sought me out – I started pursuing them. I started actually making friends, putting myself out there and trusting that I wouldn’t get hurt. And if I did, well, then, I’d chalk it up to life experience.
I’m still that same kid on the inside. Still know I’m different from most, think differently than the norm. But the people who are close to me now, the ones who truly are friends in every sense of the word, are the ones who are most precious to me. They share my highs and my lows, give me strength and receive it from me when they need it, and they celebrate the person I am, differences and all.
It’s been said that words have power. My power comes from within, but also from my friends. And they make me feel very powerful indeed.
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, female friends, Friends, Romance, Strong Women
Freebies!!
Just a reminder: I’ve doing a GOODREADS giveaway this month of paperback copies of SKATER’S WALTZ in celebration of my May 6 release of THERE’S NO PLAC LIKE HOME, Here’s the link and remember: you gotta be in it to win it! Good luck. More on There’s no Place Like home to come!’
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24872836-skater-s-waltz-the-macquire-women-1
Why we should support each other as Writers….
One of my lovely, talented and fun-to-be-around NHRWA member chapter-mates just found out she is a finalist in the RWA GoldenHeart Contest. For those of you who don’t know what this means, listen up. The Golden Hearts awards are given to extremely talented and deserving romance writers who have not had a book-length romance published as of yet. It’s like the Golden Globes awards are to the Oscars. In romance, the Oscars are the annual RITA awards. So when my chapter-mate’s name was announced the other day, everyone who knows her was instantly thrilled for her, including all of us who belong to the New Hampshire chapter. Prestige, honor and open doors in the publishing world all accompany this nomination and, subsequent win. She – and we – will find out the winners at the annual RWA conference in July in NYC. It proves to be a truly memorable event.
Her nomination/finalist state and our happiness for her got me to thinking. Writers of romance are truly the most convivial and supportive group of humans I have ever met. We applaud each other’s successes, understand the emotional toils the non-successes ( I don’t like the word failure) take on our souls, and we cheer each other on through the often grueling process of creating love on the page.
Romance writers are a rare breed. And I am so thankful they/we are.
Competition many times fosters a sense of isolation and removal from the group of people you are competing against. The goal is to win it all, many times at whatever cost. Friendships are lost and destroyed all just to grab that proverbial golden ring.
Not so with romance writers. Yes, we compete against one another in the basic sense because we all want to get our book published and into the hands of readers. But for every NYT bestseller and USA list out there where a romance writer makes it to the top, the rest of us know we can make it there, too. The trail blazers like Nora Roberts, Beatrice Small, and Kathleen Woodiwiss have made what we write relevant to the masses and a force to be reckoned with in the sales division. We literally stand on their writing shoulders and are lifted up by their triumphs to gain success for ourselves. The better they do, the better we do.
So. I congratulate my writing friend with all sincerity and love. She is truly deserving of the nomination AND the win. When we are all in NYC in July I will be among the other 2,000 or so attendees who will be standing and applauding her victory, for her victory is also ours and we are better for knowing her.
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, female friends, NHRWA, Romance, Romance Books, RWA, Strong Women
Peggy Jaeger, Author 