It’s the holiday season in the tiny town of Dickens and pilot Michael Charles is home for his annual visit. His wanderlust has him itching to get back up in the skies as soon as possible, especially since he’s got a full schedule of rich and famous clients waiting to be transported to warm, exotic locales for the winter.
When his heavily pregnant sisters present him with a plan to give their workaholic mother some time off from managing the family diner, he balks. But one look at how tired the woman who took him into her home and heart is, and Michael agrees to run Dorrit’s Diner for a month so Amy Charles can get some well-deserved rest.
He’ll be back in the skies by the New Year.
The diner staff functions like a well-oiled machine, most of them long-term employees. The exception is new waitress Julia Maryland. The beautiful blonde has a past filled with heartache, a charming six-year-old daughter, and a smile Michael could spend the day getting lost in. But starting a relationship with her wouldn’t be wise because his visit is temporary and Julia seems like a permanent kind of girl.
When a family emergency requires him to rethink and reassess his life, Michael wonders if it’s time he becomes a permanent kind of man.
… Michael Charles, my hero in DON’T MESS WITH THE MISTLETOE, A Dickens Holiday Romance ( book 18): Dorrit’s Diner, available for preorder right now.
It’s the holiday season in the tiny town of Dickens and pilot Michael Charles is home for his annual visit. His wanderlust has him itching to get back up in the skies as soon as possible, especially since he’s got a full schedule of rich and famous clients waiting to be transported to warm, exotic locales for the winter.
When his heavily pregnant sisters present him with a plan to give their workaholic mother some time off from managing the family diner, he balks. But one look at how tired the woman who took him into her home and heart is, and Michael agrees to run Dorrit’s Diner for a month so Amy Charles can get some well-deserved rest.
He’ll be back in the skies by the New Year.
The diner staff functions like a well-oiled machine, most of them long-term employees. The exception is new waitress Julia Maryland. The beautiful blonde has a past filled with heartache, a charming six-year-old daughter, and a smile Michael could spend the day getting lost in. But starting a relationship with her wouldn’t be wise because his visit is temporary and Julia seems like a permanent kind of girl.
When a family emergency requires him to rethink and reassess his life, Michael wonders if it’s time he becomes a permanent kind of man.
I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately. With the holidays approaching – my first Christmas season without my mother – I want to remember the reasons I am truly grateful she was in my life. We may have had a tortured relationship, but she was still, in the end, my mother. So, what are you grateful for from your parents?
Your eye color? Skin texture? Sense of humor? The way they guided you to adulthood? The wisdom they imparted?
As a reader, I know that some books leave you with a book hangover or the notion you wish you could go re-read it again for the very first time.
This book did both those to me – and I wrote it!!
I think Harper and Dylan are my favorite love match so far. And I know you’re not supposed to pick favorites among your kids, but…
This little gem releases on Monday, 9.18, and I just put so much of my heart and soul into writing it. I was penning it at the time I was going through a huge upheaval in my life this past year and just being able to escape into the lives of Harper and Dylan helped me barrel through that tumultuous time.
I truly hope if you read the book you enjoy their journey to their HEA as much as I did writing it for them.
Cyber Security specialist Dylan Keene is working undercover to suss out a corporate thief. The client wants answers – yesterday – and Dylan’s getting close. When he zeros in on coding expert Harper Vale, he thinks he’s found his mole and sets out to prove it.
Harper has a reputation as a coding savant and an introvert. As a woman competing in a male-dominated industry, Harper doesn’t make waves. Dylan’s interest in her is flattering, but after she’s implicated in the theft of the company’s protected software, she begins to doubt everything he’s told her.
When a series of potentially deadly accidents occur, all surrounding Harper, Dylan starts to wonder if she truly is guilty, or being made to take the fall. One thing is certain, though. The more time the two of them spend together, the more Dylan realizes he’s the one who’s falling – for Harper.
He slid his free hand into hers so he held both of them. “I hope you had a good time today.”
“I did. Surprisingly.”
He winced and winked an eye closed. “Ouch.”
“Oh, God, no. That’s not what I meant.”
Her cheeks turned five shades darker than the rest of her face.
“I meant I didn’t think tossing an ax around or beating up on inanimate objects was going to be fun, but it was. Really fun. Thank you for taking me. I’ve lived in this area for a while and never knew that place existed.”
Her nerves were adorable, another facet of her personality he shouldn’t be thinking about, because when he did it solidified he really wanted to kiss her.
Like, kiss-her-socks-off kiss her.
He nodded, then squeezed her hands. “Well, I’ve gotta head out. My brother gets testy when he’s kept waiting.” He shook his head and blew out a breath filled with dramatic exasperation.
When she grinned up at him, the free and easy laughter in her eyes warming his soul, he thought, what the hell, and let go of her hands to cup her chin.
The soft sigh of surprise that shot from her was almost his undoing. Leisurely, he rubbed her rosy cheeks with his thumbs as he watched her pupils dilate in the afternoon sun.
“Just for the record,” he murmured as he brought his head down, “I had fun today, too. More than I’ve had in a long, long time.”
And the funny thing was it was the truth.
Right before his lips touched hers, the notion to pull back and retreat from this madness blew into the front of his mind and was instantly kicked to the curb.
He knew he was playing a dangerous game, that one of them was sure to wind up hurt. But right now, with this gorgeous, fascinating, enigma of a woman standing toe to toe with him and looking for all the world like she was on board with the idea of kissing him back, he simply didn’t give a shit.
The moment his lips touched hers he knew a simple kiss would never be enough.
While his thumbs continued caressing her smooth, silky cheeks, Dylan let himself enjoy the delicate flash of desire he felt push from her.
If pressed before this moment, he would have admitted that while he liked kissing a woman and exploring all the ways he could stoke a flame of lust, what it ultimately led to was always more preferable.
But right now? That thought went out the proverbial window, because this simple kiss was more exciting, more pleasurable, more downright erotic than any other he’d ever given or received. He wanted to kiss her straight up the steps of her building, through her apartment door, and then in every room where she lived.
He’d thought her skin was soft, but her mouth, warm and responsive, was by far the softest thing he’d ever touched. He took a step closer, willing his hands to remain on her cheeks lest they’d drop and haul her flat against them.
The feel of Harper’s hands resting on his chest was twenty shades of delicious. She had to feel his heart banging against his ribs; had to know how excited he was. When she opened her mouth, the intoxicating taste of her drifting into him assured him he had to stop this madness, when all he wanted to do was…plunder.
On a sigh, he pulled back.
Her eyes, half closed and heavy-lidded told him she was as moved by the kiss as he was.
Slowly, he slid his hands from her face, hating he was no longer touching her.
The overpowering emotions careening through him made him nervous, something he never was with a woman. He cleared his throat and searched for something to say that didn’t sound lame or juvenile.
Harper opened her eyes fully, surprise jumping through them as she stared up at him.
Yeah, I know how ya feel, babe. Kinda shocked me, too.
Dylan cleared his throat. “Thanks again for coming with me today.”
From the second book in the San Valentino family chronicles, A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS is a sweet, holiday romance about mistaken identity, family, and a holiday church bazaar.
“Gia Gabriella,” Mama bellowed from the bottom of the staircase, “Andiamo, let’s go. We’re gonna be late.”
With Christmas just a few weeks away, Gia San Valentino, the baby in her large, loud, and loving Italian family, yearns for a life and home of her own with a husband and bambini she can love and spoil. The single scene doesn’t interest her, and the men her well-meaning family introduce her to aren’t exactly the happily-ever-after kind.
Tim Santini believes he’s finally found the woman for him, but Gia will take some convincing she’s that girl. A misunderstanding has her thinking he’s something he’s not.
Can a kiss stolen under the Christmas lights persuade her to spend the rest of her life with him?
This little gem came out just before Valentine’s Day 2016 and is still one of my all-time favorite books of mine because it introduced me and the book-reading world to the wonderful San Valentino family.
Here’s the first line:
“I’m culling,” my mother said.
That line made me laugh when I wrote it because if you read the entire paragraph, you get a sense that something is not exactly RIGHT about this type of culling!
Want to meet the San Valentino family? Here’s the link to 3 Wishes.
Whew! I got it done. 25 posts in 25 days is the most I’ve posted all in a row in a few years.
I hope you enjoyed my ornament journey and the stories that went with all my favorites. This is the last one and it was given to me by my Sister-in-Law Mary when we moved into our current house.
I want to wish all of you the happiest of holidays, merriest of Christmas’s and a new year filled with love, laughter, light, and – most of all – health.
Before I show you my final ornament tomorrow, I thought I’d show you the two trees I put up this year. One is our family and friends tree ( the big one), the other is the traveling tree.
You’ll recognize many of the ornaments I’ve already shown you on both of these!!!
From Frank Sinatra and Alicia Keys singing about it, to all the wonderful movies that have been made in it, New York is one of the world’s favorite places.
I’m so proud to have been born and bred there. I was a real NYC girl until 27 when I married and moved away. But whenever we go back to visit the relatives I slip back into forgetting to pronounce my “Rs” and speaking really, really fast!
This ornament was purchased during the 2011 holiday season when hubby, daughter and I were back for Christmas. We took my niece, Alison, and my in-laws to see Chicago on Broadway and I just had to have an ornament to commemorate the great day we all had. The one blight? The apostrophe in Jaegers. I never noticed it until the street artist was finished. The writer in me is appalled, but the New Yorker in my just finds it funny.
Peggy Jaeger, Author 