3 Wishes VBT

Blurb:

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.

Excerpt:

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.

Growing up as the “fat” kid in school, you can be fairly certain I never received any Valentine’s Day cards from my peers that weren’t prompted by teachers. I was that girl in school: bigger, shyer, smarter, and my last name was different from my mother’s during a time when divorce was a scandal and not the societal norm it is today.

As I matured – and thinned out – things didn’t really change until I went away to college where no one knew me. And even then, the fact I was still slightly different from the other girls in my nursing program, due to a lifetime of trying to be invisible, didn’t make things much better in my social scene.

One thing that got me through the long days of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood was reading and writing, romance stories in particular. I could escape into a world where it was okay to be different, because someone – SOMEONE – would always find you and know they were your soul mate.

When the opportunity arose to write a Valentine’s Day novella for the Wild Rose Press’s Candy Hearts Romance line, I leapt at it. I wanted to write a humorous piece about a girl looking for her own soul mate, and who, approaching that societal benchmark of 30 and unmarried, looks back to her idea of the perfect mate. 3 WISHES is my homage to all the girls of a certain age and background who want to find that one person they can bond to for life, and who will love them with the same passion, dedication, commitment and freedom that they give to their love.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

February 1: Harps Romance Book Review
February 1: Two Ends of the Pen
February 2: Christine Young
February 2: Sharing Links and Wisdom
February 3: Romance Novel Giveaways
February 4: Marlow Kelly History and other Ponderings
February 4: LibriAmoriMiei - review only
February 5: jbiggarblog
February 8: The Reading Addict
February 9: Theresa Stillwagon
February 9: Lampshade Reader - review
February 10: Nana Prah
February 11: Erin Cawood/Beyond my writing space - review
February 12: Read Your Writes Book Reviews - promo

Author Bio and Links:

Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance author who writes about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can't live without them.

Her current titles, available now, include SKATER'S WALTZ and THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, and FIRST IMPRESSIONS books 1 through 3 in her 6-book The MacQuire Women Series, published by The Wild Rose Press.


Peggy holds a master's degree in Nursing Administration and first found publication with several articles she authored on Alzheimer's Disease during her time running an Alzheimer's in-patient care unit during the 1990s.

A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, she is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.

Website/Blog     |     Twitter     |     Facebook     |     Pinterest

Amazon Author page     |     Goodreads     |     Instagram