For the entire month of March, the Romance Gems are celebrating being LUCKY IN LOVE. And let’s be honest: if you’ve happened to find someone to love, that DOES make you lucky!
As usual, we’re having a contest fro Amazon Gift cards, so make sure you read the daily blogs and enter here: LILRG
Don’t forget to stop by the blog daily!
Until next time, peeps ~Peg
Filed under ROmance Gems
It’s no secret if you follow my blog that I’ve got a brand new series starting on Monday, 1.13.20 titled A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: RICK. It’s a new romantic suspense trilogy about a private eye firm run by brothers ( hence, the name. Heehee)
I’ll be all over the place promoting it for the next month, but this past week I started my own little tour and visited a bunch of fabulous authors who volunteered to help me get the word out about the book – love them all. At each stop I told you all a little more about the book, how it came to be, what my inspiration for writing it was, and a bit more about my writing quirks.
So, if you missed any of these, here’s a recap of where I was all week with the links included so you can visit me. Better late than never, I always say.
On Monday, January 6, I visited WRP sistah Alana Lorens
On Tuesday, January 7, I hopped over to another wonderful WRP sistah, author Judith Sterling.
Wednesday, January 8th, brought me to WRP writer and friend Jennifer Wilck
Thursday, January 9th I flew over to WRP sistah Amber Dalton
Friday, January 10 I made it all the way over to Jeny Heckman’s blog
Today, Saturday Januray 11, I’m camping over with author D.V.Stone starting at 7am ESt.
I was thrilled when the book was featured on Pretty-Hot.com, too, on January 6.
So, stop by and catch up and then stop back here next week because I’ll be starting a SILVER DAGGER TOUR that features giveaways and Gift Cards, so you won’t want to miss out on that.
Until next time ~ Peg
Blurb:
Elite bodyguard and P.I. Rick Bannerman’s job is to protect. He doesn’t get emotional with his clients, but when a woman from his past is threatened, his next job becomes personal.
Family lawyer Abigail Laine is the target of a client’s vengeful husband, but refuses Rick’s offer of protection. He walked away from her four years ago, and she swore to forget him.
Now her reluctance to accept his help could cost Abby her life.
Preorder your copy here before it releases on 1.13.20
Amazon //B&N // ibooks //Books-a-million
Filed under A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: RICK, Alpha Hero, Alpha Male, Romance, Romance Books, romantic suspense
I don’t usually post full face pictures of myself on this page for a number of reasons, but the biggest one being I hate full face pictures of myself!!!
Cindy Crawford I am not.
I’m not even Helen Mirren and she’s in the same age group as me.
But when I received this award over the weekend, I also received a letter from FCRW that asked the winners to take a picture with the award and their winning book to post on the FCRW Facebook and Twitter pages. Since it was going to be so publicly displayed anyway, I figured, why not blog about it, too, and post the picture.
So…
I am still rehabbing from my surgery, so you can see a tiny speck of the immobilizer covering my right hand as I hold the beautiful award. Yes, I’m in my nightgown, there’s nothing on my face except Retin A, I’m wearing my daytime glasses and my hair isn’t combed because I can’t do that yet ( due to dominant arm surgery!) But it would have taken too much time, effort, and energy – none of which I have, to look camera ready.
But..all that aside, this award truly touched my heart.
The past two months have been filled with self doubt, feelings of inadequacy, and frustration over my writing career. After being dropped by two publishers and receiving some horrible reviews for my books, in addition to still not seeing my sales and readers increase, I’ve been struggling with the concept that writing for publication is something I’m not cut out for. There’s so much more involved than just writing stories of my heart. The time and cash spent on marketing, the query letters, the waiting to hear back, the time delays between book publications – it’s all starting to take a toll on my psyche.
The endless questions: have I peaked out? Is this all worth the time and expense? What am I killing myself for?
Dramatic? Yeah, maybe, but hey: this is me we’re talking about. Drama in my confirmation name.
And then this happens.
I think sometimes the universe, and/or God knows just what to do to make me realize my decisions and my life are worthwhile.
So…no more moping, overthinking, doubting, bitching or complaining.
Now if I could just brush my hair…..
Oh, and because the marketing aspect NEVER ends, here’s the book that won the award, available in ecopy, print and audio.
Amazon ///B&N // AppleBooks //GooglePlay// Kobo // AmazonUK
With Christmas season in full swing, baker Regina San Valentino is up to her elbows in cake batter and cookie dough. Between running her own business, filling her bursting holiday order book, and managing her crazy Italian family, she’s got no time to relax, no room for more custom cake orders, and no desire to find love. A failed marriage and a personal tragedy have convinced her she’s better off alone. Then a handsome stranger enters her bakery begging for help. Regina can’t find it in her heart to refuse him. Connor Gilhooly is in a bind. He needs a specialty cake for an upcoming fundraiser and puts himself and his company’s reputation in Regina’s capable hands. What he doesn’t plan on is falling for a woman with heartbreak in her eyes or dealing with a wise-guy father and a disapproving family. Can Regina lay her past to rest and trust the man who’s awoken her heart?
Until next time ~ Peg
I know I made a New Year’s resolution to blog only 3-4 times per week because last year it got to be waaaaaay too much to do it more often. Well, I’ve already broken that resolution. Last week I blogged 7 times. There’s a pattern here somewhere and I’m gonna figure out why I am so compelled to do this, but that’s a blog for another day.
The reason I’m blogging today is because I have a number of things going on right now in the Romance reading universe and I wanted to let you all know about them at the same time to save myself a hours of Hootsuiting. I don’t think that’s a verb, but whatever. You all know marketing isn’t my strongest point in this publishing arena.
Right now, I’m participating in 3 Rafflecopter giveaways for the month of February. The prizes vary in each from a Kindle fire to free romance books and book bundles, so you’ll want to click on each link below to see what’s being given away. And you should enter each of them. The prizes are fab and in all honesty you gotta be in it to win it!
In no particular order, here are the links:
NN Lights Love and Romance Book Festival : Link to enter
The grand opening of the new ROMANCE GEMS blog: Link to enter
Author Constance Bretes Love Forever Romance Ebook giveaway : Link to enter.
And….. don’t forget that 3 WISHES ebook is on sale for 99cents until Feb. 15. Links to buy
and last but not least, 3 WISHES is also a BARGAIN BOOKSY deal today!
I need a nap! ~ Peg
Filed under 3 Wishes, Candy Hearts, Contemporary Romance, Cooking, Foodie, love, Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women, The Wild Rose Press
“I’m culling,” my mother said. With a snap of her wrist she sent another two-hundred-dollar silk shirt into a black plastic trash bag situated next to her bed.
3 Wishes ( A Candy Heart Romance)
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 three wishes.
Buy links:
Amazon // Wild Rose Press // Kobo // B&n // Walmart // Google play //i-books // Books-a-million
also available in audio
and you can find me here:
Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// BookMe // Monkey me //Watch me
and here’s the link to my TELL ME ABOUT YOUR DAMN BOOK podcast interview, just in case you missed it: TMAYDB
As a romance writer, I’m always looking for the most romantic way to state a declaration of love. In my opinion, these 7 authors have done it just right.
Jane Austen
Ernest Hemingway
Leo Tolstoy
A.A. Milne
Miss Austen, again
William Goldman
Jodi Picoult
I wonder what the other authors in this blog hop are talking about today. Find out HERE
Looking for me? Here I am: Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me
and one last shameless plug: Check out my new AUDIOBOOK version of 3 WISHES, available now at Audible // Itunes // and Amazon.
Filed under Saturday Seven
SO I’m back home after spending a few days in Burlington, MA at the NECRW 2018 Let Your imagination take Flight writers conference. Tired doesn’t begin to describe me today. My bones are weary!
This year, I made a concerted effort to put my little introverted self out there and meet new writers. Those of you who know me, probably think I’m having some kind of stroke by referring to myself as introverted. But I am, truly. Even though I’ll talk to a rock, I still get ridiculously nervous and feel I’m being judged by people I’ve just met.
But that’s my hangup, so….
Lots of fun and informative times at the conference.
First and foremost, met the amazeballs and national writing treasure Beverly Jenkins. She gave a master class on setting and world building that was so spot on, it’s no wonder she’s the fabulous writer she is. Every writer – whether of the romance genre, or truly, an other genre, could learn something from this brilliant woman that would elevate their writing to heights never thought of before. I have 6 pages of handwritten, excited notes from her class and can’t wait to start putting them into practice.
From the phenomenal and tech-brilliant Nam Patel I seriously increased my knowledge base of keywords, SEO’s and how to navigate through google. Nam is the kind of brilliant person who is able to break down complex knowledge principles to an understandable language for tach-no-savvy’s like me!!
I’d never heard the term Fan-Fiction before until I took a class with literary agent Courtney Miller Callahan on the subject. Boy, did I get an eyeopener!
Of course there were other workshops I attended, but these three ladies were by far the best and brightest of the bunch!
Now, I’m off to start building a better world and setting for my characters, then I have to update my internet accounts, and finally, I may just take a quick trek through a few fan fiction pages to get an idea of what this whole subgenre is really about. I can smell a potential story line here for a couple of people who need an HEA in their lives!
Of course when I’m not writing you can find me here;
Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me
and one last shameless plug: Check out my new AUDIOBOOK version of 3 WISHES, available now at Audible // Itunes // and Amazon.
Filed under 3 Wishes, Author, Author Branding, Candy Hearts, Food lover, love, Romance, Romance Books, The Wild Rose Press
Every year when the Hollywood awards season starts – you know: the Screen Actors Guild awards, the Oscars, the Golden Globes, — I start to get excited because for me that means the beginning of WRITERS CONFERENCE TIME.
No lie. There is literally a romance writers conference every single month from now until December, and I’m going to a bunch of them this year.
The very first is taking place this weekend in Burlington, MA with the NECRW LET YOUR IMAGINATION TAKE FLIGHT conference and book signing. I’ll be cavorting, mingling, and networking with hundreds of romance writers like me, and even participating in the big book signing tomorrow night.
So, if you’re in Burlington, MA area and you love to read romance, stop by the Marriott from 6-8 tomorrow night and meet over 50 of your favorite and most popular romance authors of every genre. Buy some books. Have a ball. I know I will!
And because you know me so well, you know I’ll be blogging about this event daily, letting you in on all the workshop info and little tidbits of publishing knowledge I gather. Plus fan-girling over all my fav authors!
Hope to see you there!
And if you can’t make it to the conference to see me, you can always find me hereTweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me
and one last thing: Check out my new AUDIOBOOK version of 3 WISHES, available now at Audible // Itunes // and Amazon.
Yesterday I told you why I love to give –and get — a book for a holiday gift. Today I want to talk about the kinds of books you give to others.
The type of reader is as diverse and sundry as the genres of books available. From autobiographies to YA, from biographies to Military history. From Cookbooks to Craft books; True Crime and Murder to Cozy mysteries. And of course, my favorite, Romance. Within each of those genres are several subgenres and to find the perfect book for the book reader on your list, you need to wade through all the varieties, skip over some of the styles, and comb through all the different classifications of each genre and subgenre.
Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it, just to find a book. Well, it may be a little tedious, but it’s sosososo worth it when you find the perfect one.
This is a very abbreviated list of the types of books I would give to my book reading peeps and family. Very abbreviated!!!
Babies: ( for Mommy and Daddy to read aloud) Goodnight, Moon
In a great green room, tucked away in bed, is a little bunny. “Goodnight room, goodnight moon.” And to all the familiar things in the softly lit room—to the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs, to the clocks and his socks, to the mittens and the kittens, to everything one by one—the little bunny says goodnight.
Toddlers: If Animals Kissed Goodnight
If animals kissed
like we kiss good night,
Giraffe and his calf
would stretch their necks high
and kiss just beneath
the top of the sky.
In a cozy bedtime chat with her mom, a young girl wonders how animal families might say good night. Would Wolf and his pup “kiss and then HOWL”? Would Bear and her cub “kiss and then GROWL”? But what about Sloth and her baby? They move soooo slooowwwww . . . they’re sure to be kissing from early evening until long after everyone else is fast asleep!
Beginning readers: Any of the Berenstain Bears books and of course, my all-time favorite, The Little Engine That Could
Young readers: Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys ( dated, I know, but they all teach good concepts such as critical thinking, sharing, and trust)
Tweens: The Fault in Our Stars
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Teens/YA: The Beginning of Everything
Varsity tennis captain Ezra Faulkner was supposed to be homecoming king, but that was before—before his girlfriend cheated on him, before a car accident shattered his leg, and before he fell in love with unpredictable new girl Cassidy Thorpe.
Adults from 20-100: I like true crime/history/biographies. Two of my absolute favorites, and which I’ve read more than once each are Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
and Under the Banner of Heaven 
This extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities, where some 40,000 people still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.
As I’ve said, this is a very abbreviated list. I could go on for pages about the best books to invest in, but time is short and money is fleeting, so….
Of course, you can always gift one on my books to the romance reader you’re buying for( shameless plug, I know!) if the Christmas Spirit moves you. Here’s a complete list to peruse. Peggy’s books
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Paperback, ebook or audio?
Which do you like best? I’m going to answer that question backward. Why? Just listen…
I’ve never been able to listen to an audio book without my attention wandering.
When we first moved to New England ( and even still to this day) we would travel to NYC to visit relatives frequently via car. My husband is the main driver in the family, so I have always been relegated to the front seat passenger side. You can only talk so much in a car before it gets: distracting, boring, tiring, so that means I usually need something to pass the 4+ hours ( without traffic) it takes to get to our destination. I tried listening to audio books when we first started these treks. Five minutes in my mind would start to wander or drift, or I’d slip into sleep. Just listening to someone’s voice – no matter how riveting the book was reported to be – was mind numbing to me. So, not a fan of audiobooks.
I had an original Kindle. You know, like ten years ago when it costs $300+ dollars!!
Again, I purchased it mainly because we travel so much and carting heavy books around, because I like to read hardbacks, was getting to be too much in luggage weight. I took the Patricia Cornwall book Scarpetta to England and the flight attendant said I had to stow it because it was so heavy! SO the Kindle seemed perfect. And I do love my Kindle. I have my account and the app uploaded on all my devices from phone to computer to iPad so I am always able to read wherever I am.
But….
There is just something about a book.
I love the way a library and an old book store smells. No, not musty and damp!!! But like you just sense down to your bones the millions of words and pages living in those places. I like holding a book, especially if I’m sitting down in a cozy, favorite chair, by a warm fire on a cold day. I fully realize it’s wicked easier holding a Kindle when you are standing in line waiting to get on an airplane, or on the subway, and that’s another reason I love my Kindle: ease of holding. If I read my Kindle before bed, though, my brain tends to not shut down easily. A battery of psychologists did testing that postulated this is because the pixels and the other cyber stuff of devices forces your brain to stay awake by stimulating it. Reading a regular book, on the other hand, is calming to your brain.
Ahhh, a book….turnable pages filled with inky thoughts and ideas…something solid, that has weight – both in ounces and substance(!)
SO for me, it’s never really a contest – a real book all the time. ( With Kindle a close second!)
Stop by the other authors in the Blog Challenge and see how they like to read….
Filed under #Mfrwauthors, Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women
Peggy Jaeger, Author 