I’ve been waiting so long for this final chapter in the HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER series to be born and today’s the day!
YOU’RE MY MATCH is a sweet with heat, enemies to lovers, opposites attract, workplace romance about two people who never thought the other was their soulmate, or even a person they would want in their life.
Charity Quinlan is a workaholic, independent woman who wants nothing more than to have a successful career and a marriage as happy and long as her parents.
Kolby O’Brian in a professional photographer and a man who thinks one-night stands are as far as a committed relationship goes. He has a reason for keeping women at arm’s length, and once Charity discovers what that reason is, she is stunned. And intrigued.
YOU’RE MY MATCH ends the HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER series and ties the original series, A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN, into it, giving us a glimpse at the O’Dowd sisters’ lives and how they all interact with Charity and Kolby.
As a reminder, 100% of all the royalties on every book sold in the month of November is going toward my local food bank charity FEEDING TINY TUMMIES. FTT serves the children and families of the Monadnock region and they are one of the most worthwhile organizations I have ever known. I am proud to help sponsor them, so please, help me help them and buy the book! LOL ( Shameless plug and ask!)
PERFECT MATCH releases in under 2 weeks so I’m introducing you to the main characters. Today, it’s Hunter Reinhart’s turn. This is how I’ve pictured him since I began the series…
If you are a certain age, the acronym IFYKYK will hit you hard. For those of you who don’t know, this is Richard Chamberlain, a mega-heartthrob in the 1960’s for his role as Dr. Kildaire, then as Fr. Ralph de Bricassart in the THORN BIRDS series. I have always adored this man for soso many reasons, the most obvious? That face. He just looks like a kindhearted doctor! Hence, he’s my Hunter.
About Hunter…
he’s a geriatrician
he’s divorced, no kids
he comes from “old” money
he’s naturally shy and reserved
he has a real love and adoration of older people
Hunter’s been on a lot of dates before he finds his Perfect Match. You can guess who that is! But it’s better to read the book, lol.
PERFECT MATCH releases 2 weeks from today, so I thought you might want to know a few things about the main characters.
Today, it’s OLIVIA JOYNER, Heaven’s Matchmaker. This is how I’ve pictured her since day 1, book 1 MIX and MATCH:
she’s been a widow for 21 years
She’s 40 years old
she has a 23 year old daughter
she got married at 17
she has a 99% success rate for matches/marriages
Tomorrow, you’ll meet Hunter Reinhart – the main male character.
Third-generation matchmaker, Olivia Joyner, enjoys a 99% success rate when it comes to helping people find their happily ever afters. But her newest client is proving to be part of the 0.1 percent.
All the women Olivia have matched geriatrician Hunter Reinhart with have been perfect on paper. None of them, though, have resulted in a second request for a date, and all the women say the same thing: Hunter, although handsome and successful is just…dull. And boring. And too reserved.
Olivia can’t understand it, because to her? Hunter is none of those things. In fact, he’s the exact opposite of dull, boring, and reserved. He’s a man she would consider worthy of marrying herself – if she was in the market for a spouse.
Which she isn’t.
Olivia needs to figure out why she can’t find Hunter Reinhart the perfect match, and it just may require her to do something she’s never done before: go on a “date” with a client.
Purely for research and educational purposes, that is.
To those of you who aren’t writers, this is a challenge where by you write a minimum of 30,000 words in whatever you are working on during the 28 days of this month. The goal is to write to 30K, but in my mind, it was really to get into the mood and habit of writing something every single day.
Many days I had over 3000 words to show for my efforts of sitting down at my desk and not moving my butt for hours.
Many days I had less than 1000 words to show for the same efforts.
Yesteray, Febraury 17, I hit my 30,000 word goal. Not bad. A little over 2 and half weeks and I nailed it.
And since I haven’t finished the book I’ve been working on, I’m continuing with the challenge until the end of the month or I finish the book – whatever comes first!
This was just what I needed to get me motivated and going, so a big thank you to the New Jersey Romance writers for the impetus, all the daily love and praise, and the challenge itself!
This is the book I’m working on:
Her job as an assistant wedding planner means everything to Charity Quinn. She’s got a bullet-point plan for her future, and she’s not about to let anything get in the way of her goals. But a drunken hookup with a coworker – a guy she’s had a hate/hate relationship with from the get-go – may put her plan in jeopardy. Charity has to ensure her boss never finds out about her indiscretion. But every day it’s getting harder to hide how much she wants a repeat of that amazing night.
Or at least she thinks it was amazing. Seems Charity can’t quite remember the details.
His life is a series of one-night stands and Kolby O’Brian’s not about to change his status for anyone – not even the little fireball who’s been the bane of his existence since the first day they met. Why, then, are his eyes always straying to Charity when he should be concentrating on work? And why does being around her suddenly make him want to be a different kind of man? A better one? One who thinks about…the future?
These two polar opposites need to decide if they want a future together or a life without the other in it, because an emotional volcano is churning and it’s about to erupt.
As you can see by the above graphic, I’ve been busy. I’ve got 10 releases coming this year – 7 full length novels and 3 novellas. The first drops on Monday.
Love is the last thing Carly Lennox is looking for when she sets out on her new book tour. The independent, widowed author is content with a life spent writing and raising her daughter. When newscaster Mike Woodard suggests they work on a television profile based on her book, Carly’s thrilled, but guarded. His obvious desire to turn their relationship into something other than just a working one is more than she bargained for.
Mike Woodard is ambitious, and not only in his chosen profession. He wants Carly, maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything or anyone else. And, as he tells her, he’s a patient man and can wait until she’s ready to be involved with a man again.
But the more they’re together, Mike realizes it isn’t simply desire beating within him. Carly Lennox is the missing piece in his life. Getting her to accept it-and him-may just be the toughest assignment he’s ever taken on.
Preorders are up for the entire series and I’m releasing one new book per month from January to May, so go ahead and check them out. They’ll be available in print, Kindle, and KU ( for the first time!)
So this one is from my next HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER book that is releasing on 4.7.25…
Blurb:
Third-generation matchmaker, Olivia Joyner, enjoys a 99% success rate when it comes to helping people find their happily ever afters. But her newest client is proving to be part of the 0.1 percent.
All the women Olivia have matched geriatrician Hunter Reinhart with have been perfect on paper. None of them, though, have resulted in a second request for a date, and all the women say the same thing: Hunter, although handsome and successful, is just…dull. And boring. And too reserved.
Olivia can’t understand it, because to her? Hunter is none of those things. In fact, he’s the exact opposite of dull, boring, and reserved. He’s a man she would consider worthy of marrying herself – if she was in the market for a spouse.
Which she isn’t.
Olivia needs to figure out why she can’t find Hunter Reinhart the perfect match, and it just may require her to do something she’s never done before: go on a “date” with a client.
Purely for research and educational purposes, that is.
He couldn’t have heard her correctly.
Date? The two of them? Like as in date-date? That made no sense.
She was his matchmaker. The person he’d hired to find him a wife, not be a- potential – one.
Before he could say anything, she added, “Not for real, I mean. That would be unethical and I’m certain would get me kicked out of the Matchmaker’s club.”
His brow creased. “There’s a Matchmaker’s club?”
Flipping a hand carelessly in the air, she rose, saying, “Professional ethics,” as if that explained anything. “I think we should go on a fake date or two.”
Hunter shook his head, still trying to get around the fact she wanted them to date.
Fake date? Just what the hell was that?
“Now,” she crossed to her desk and lifted her table, tapped it a few times, then brought it back to the couch, reading. “When you filled out the intake questionnaire for me you indicated you enjoyed winter sports, which is good since you live here and winter’s nine months of the year in a good year.” She grinned across to him. “But you also stated you’re open to trying new things as long as they don’t involve potentially hazardous outcomes.” She lifted her gaze again. “Give me a for instance.”
He blinked a few times. Was she seriously just leaving him hanging with no explanation about the two of them dating statement?
“What do you mean, fake date?”
Liv pulled her bottom lip under her top teeth, her gaze dropping down to her tablet for a moment before rising again and connecting with his. “It wouldn’t be a real date, not in the true sense of the word and the outcome. It would be more an educational experience, from a professional perspective. We’ll pretend to be on a date and you act like you would on a real one.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why, Olivia. Why would we go on a date, fake or real, for educational purposes, which, by the way, I can’t even imagine the meaning of?”
Her smile bloomed quick and bright for a moment he lost his train of thought.
“I see. Well, what I mean about educational purposes is that doing this will allow me to see and evaluate how you interact when you’re on a real date. Understand?”
He cocked his head. “Why do you need to…evaluate me? You said I wasn’t the problem.”
She took a breath and he wondered if she was trying to measure her words so they’d be diplomatic.
Who was he kidding? Of course she was.
PERFECT MATCH Liv and Hunter, Book 3 in Heaven’s Matchmaker is up for preorder right now, right here
Just a reminder, kids, that my GOODREADS GIVE AWAY for a FREE Kindle copy of RETRIBUTION ends tomorrow, March 1. If you haven’t entered yet, now would be the perfect time to do so.
And don’t forget to add it to you WANT TO READ list on Goodreads, too!
Staring at the phone, Tucker debated calling Kella. It had been two days since she‘d been given all the case information. She should have gone through it by now.
Just as he decided to call, his secretary buzzed through.
“Yes, Marcia?’
“Call for you on two. I almost didn’t believe who it was.” Tucker could feel her smile through the office wire. “It’s Kella. I haven’t spoken to her in I don’t know how long.”
“Put her through.”
A second later he said, “Kella?”
“Hey, Tuck.”
“Please tell me you’re done with the profile.”
“I’m fine, and how are you this lovely morning,” she asked, a laugh in her voice.
Tucker tossed his glasses on his desk and rubbed his eyes. “Kella, I don’t have time –”
“You never did,” she told him, the mirth still in her tone.
“What have you got?”
“Well, to backtrack a little, I went through everything you gave me. This is one disturbed man.”
“That goes without saying.”
“Yeah well, you and the Posse probably have a baseline profile. Male, twenty-five to forty, trouble with relationships. Lives alone, no friends, menial job, poor education. How’m I doing?”
“Right on the nose.”
“Well, you can throw it away. None of it’s accurate, except for the gender.”
Tucker sat bolt upright, put his glasses back on, and pulled a legal pad and pen across his desk.
Because we’re all in the holiday mood, here’s a snippet from this year’s Dickens Holiday Romance addition, DON’T MESS WITH THE MISTLETOE, out now in print and e-copy. Books make great gifts, kids – for the romance reader on your list and you!
I love when siblings tease one another because there is such a wealth of history behind it. In this snippet, Michael’s sister Abra goes all out in the tease-department.
When his sisters walked into the diner five minutes later, he had his answer.
“I need your help,” he said without preamble as he sidled up to their table, two glasses of ice water and menus in his hands. He plopped them all down on the countertop.
“Shove in,” he commanded Sasha.
His sisters looked up at him, eyes questioning, then at one another. Abra’s left eyebrow rose to kiss her hairline, while Sasha stifled a laugh as she moved so he could sit next to her.
With the privilege of birth rank and the dry sarcasm her book fans adored, Abra spoke first. “Good morning to you, too, little brother. We’re good, thanks for asking. Both a little tired, but that’s to be expected in our ready-to-pop-states. And how are you on this fine, cold day?” She took a sip of her water.
Exasperation drilled through him. While Sasha ultimately let the laugh go, Michael’s jaw clamped down so hard his back molars whacked against one another. He’d for sure be using the bottle of Ibuprofen Amy kept in her desk sometime today.
He fisted his hands on the table then opened and flexed them a few times as he told himself to keep calm. “Listen. I’m in a bind.”
Both their teasing smiles dissolved.
“What’s wrong?” Sasha asked, at the same time Abra said, “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” He explained about the late hours and the way things were looking back at the house. Dragging a hand through his hair the knowledge it was a month or so behind a cut just added to the list of things needing tending in his life.
“I don’t know how mom manages to run this place and keep the house looking so good. In addition to the baking she does for here, which I haven’t done, just FYI, because –hello! – I have no idea what to do and no time to do it even if I did.”
“I can help with that,” Sasha said. “I’ve got mom’s pie recipes at home. I’ll bake a few today and have Steve bring them by in the morning when he heads to the hospital.”
“Thanks, Sash.” He looked across the table at Abra.
“What?”
“Think you can stop by the house and run a load or two of laundry for me? I’m not asking you to clean the place up. I don’t want you lifting anything, but I need,” he glanced furtively around them, “stuff. I haven’t done laundry since I’ve been here and I’ve run out of everything.”
“And by everything you mean underwear?” she asked.
“Jesus, Abs. Keep your voice down, will ya?”
“You wearing repeats?” she asked, having difficulty keeping the laugh from ringing in her voice, “Or are you commando underneath those pants?”
Embarrassing him had been her full-time job when he was a teenager. Six years older, Sasha always felt she needed to look out for him as a kid. When he grew seven inches between his twelfth and thirteenth birthdays and had started towering over her, she’d decided taking him down a peg or two was her lot in life as a big sis. As adults, she still felt the need to exert her birth order status.
Heat rose up his neck at her question. The fact Julia happened to arrive at their table, her order book poised in her hand, at the same moment made him want to dissipate into a plume of mortified smoke and dissolve away. No way she hadn’t heard Abra’s question.
She was nervous. It was in the way she twined her fingers together and then unclasped them a few times. No old robe tonight, just the same clothes she’d worked in. The monkey slippers were on her feet, though, and he grinned down at them.
“My sister, Abra, had a pair of slips like yours when she was in high school. Hers were purple cats, though. She claimed they were the most comfortable things she’d ever worn.”
Julia nodded, still not making eye contact. Michael decided it was time to find out why.
“Are you mad at me?”
Her head snapped up and finally – finally – she looked at him. Those delicate, platinum brows tugged together, a thin, deep line forming between her eyes.
“Mad? No. No, not at all.” Her head shook with the declaration.
Michael stayed still, his body resting against the jam. He nodded. “Okay, if not mad, then…what? You haven’t looked at me for days. Whenever I have to speak to you, you acknowledge I do without ever saying a word back or looking at my face. Makes me feel I did something to hurt or insult you.”
Years of being a silent observer to the behaviors of his sisters taught him many things. Most importantly, when they said the word fine they were anything but, and if they gnawed on any body part – especially one on their faces – it meant they were upset about something.
Julia fit into the lip-chewing category.
A hot burst of lust exploded in his midsection when she pulled a corner in tight, and bit down.
How was it possible to be jealous of teeth?
“I’m…sorry.” Her gaze dropped to the floor as she shook her head.
“There’s no need to apologize. Just talk to me, Julia. What’s going on? Is the schedule too much for you? Do you need some time off? Or is your asshole ex still bothering you?”
“No, it’s none of those.” Her body folded in on itself with a sigh and she moved to sit at the table. Michael joined her.
“Talk to me.”
She stared down at her hands for a few beats. Then, “Did you ever feel like despite everything you were doing, you were never making a dent in anything?”
“Every single second of the past week.” He snorted.
Her head shot up, that delicate quirk in her brow showing itself again.
“Don’t look surprised,” he said. “It’s not a secret I’m drowning here. I had to stoop way below my comfort level today and ask my sisters for help. Believe me, that’s no easy thing to do, especially with Abra. She’ll never let me live it down.”
His joking tone finally had her relaxing. Her torso slid backward in the chair and she unwrapped her fingers from one another.
“I truthfully do not know how my mother does everything she does, every day, and still manages to remain upright when she turns the open sign to closed every evening.”
A grin split the mouth she’d been gnawing moments before. “Your mother is amazing,” she said. “And the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
“Truth. So tell me, why are you feeling like you’re on the down escalator when you’re trying to go up?”
Julia blinked a few times. “That’s a fairly accurate analogy.”
“Wish I could take the credit but I read it in one of Abra’s books. It stuck with me because I feel that way more than I’d like to admit.”
She studied him, her gaze drifting across his face, down to his mouth, then shoulders. He had the insane notion to sit up straighter, like he was back in school and being graded on good posture.
The breath she let loose was as pregnant as his sisters.
“Remember when I told you about Jeff and…everything?”
He nodded.
“Everything he did had a short-term and a long-term consequence. Short term, he stole from me and left me with no available savings. Long term, I now have legal fees for lawyers I needed to hire to get me out of the financial mess he put me in. Unraveling every account he opened in my name, then drew funds from, has made my credit score plummet. I need to pay back a portion of what he took. There are legal ramifications if I don’t. My lawyer is trying to get all the penalties waved since I was the victim of identity theft, but that takes time. And money for court fees. Money I don’t have.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know if you know this but your mother is letting me live here for free. If she didn’t I’d be in a shelter somewhere with Blake because I can’t afford housing.”
“What about your parents? Wouldn’t they take you in?”
The thin, harsh line her beautiful mouth pulled into told him the answer.
“My parents want nothing to do with me or Blake. They blame me for bringing Jeff into their lives and question my judgment about people. In truth they weren’t big fans of my husband, Tony, either. But at least he was honest. The worst thing he ever did was die, in their opinion, and leave me nothing but medical bills. Which I paid off, in full. I sold our house, paid off the mortgage and then used the remainder for the hospital and care bills, leaving me with nothing. I was just starting to get back on my financial feet again when I met Jeff.”
“And we know how that ended.”
He wasn’t surprised his mother had given her a place to stay, free of charge, or a job. Which had him asking, “Is waitressing something you’ve done before?”
Peggy Jaeger, Author 