It’s release day for my friend Peggy Jaeger’s brand new holiday novel, FIXING CHRISTMAS. It’s a wonderful tale of finding love during this special season. It’s doubly special because it follows Abra Chares, who we saw in Peggy’s delightful prequel not long ago.
It’s a wonderful, heartwarming story…But wait, I’ll let Peggy tell you about it..
Welcome back to the tiny New England town of Dickens! FIXING
CHRISTMAS is the full length companion novel to my novella SANTA BABY (
DORRIT’S DINER) and tells the story of a grown-up Abracadabra Charles and her
life since she was left on Amy Dorrit’s doorstep 38 Christmas Eve’s ago.
Writing about adoption was a true labor of love for me. For
several years my husband and I have attended a local auction for the Foster
Parents Association in our community to raise excess funds for the worthwhile
group. When I learned the statistics about how many children are placed in
foster care each year – the number exploding due to the Opioid abuse crisis in
this country – I was dumbfounded. The number of children in my community who
are adopted by the foster parents is very high, something that warms my heart
as a human being and as a writer. Being able to add to their ever dwindling
government funding through the auction is something that fills me with a sense
of pride.
In my own extended family adoption has played a major role.
My sister-in-law and her husband adopted 2 babies(newborns!) within 2 months of
one another and created an instant, loving family. FIXING CHRISTMAS is
dedicated to them because they were my role models for Andy and Amy Charles,
Abra’s adoptive parents.
BLURB:
Christmas has never filled writer Abra Charles with
undiluted pleasure. If you’d been left on a doorstep on Christmas Eve morning,
you might have a few issues with the holiday as well.
Abra’s avoided her hometown of Dickens for the past twenty
Christmas seasons, but now she’s returned in an attempt to get her writing mojo
back. Twice-divorced and with her third engagement ending in heartbreak, anger,
and blackmail, Abra is now six months behind on submitting her current book.
She hopes renting Copperfield House and immersing herself in solitude will cure
her writer’s block and get her life back on track. The house she rents isn’t
helping her achieve her goal, though, as one thing after another breaks,
collapses, or floods.
Colton Bree, Dickens’ very own Mr. FixIt can’t help but
wonder if the new resident of Copperfield House is cursed. After being called
to repair a broken window, he’s then needed to fix an exploding coffeepot, an
overrunning toilet, and a washing machine that has a mind of its own. Bree
doesn’t mind all the unexpected repair jobs, though, because the sexy renter is
something to look at and dream about, despite being a little neurotic and whole
lot of snarky.
Can Abra get her book done with all the distractions and
craziness of her life, the biggest distraction being the flannelled hunk with
the bedroom eyes and scowling yet oh-so-kissable mouth? Or will Dickens’ Mr
FixIt have to step in and save the day and in so doing, fix Christmas for Abra
forever?
EXCERPT:
Here she was, alone at God only knew what hour, out in the most secluded part of town. The notion she should have paid more attention to those self-defense classes she’d sat in on as research for her last book blew through her head.
Think,
Abra, think.
A butcher block of knives rested on the
kitchen counter.
Armed
is always better than unarmed.
She pulled one out, held it against her
thigh.
Opening the basement door as if she was
trying to disarm a live bomb, she slid through it and took a step downward.
When the stair didn’t give her away by groaning, she stepped down another, then
another until she could crouch down a bit and see into the basement proper.
A man, large and tall—exceptionally
so—swept glass from a windowpane with the head of a hammer. The window looked
too small for him to have crawled through, so how had he gotten into the house?
Abra took another step down and, in the
next second, lost her balance as her foot miscalculated the depth of the step.
She flailed out but wasn’t quick enough to grab onto the handrail before she
tumbled straight down to the concrete basement floor, her butt bumping on each
riser until she landed, once again, flat on her ass at the bottom. Still sore
from last night’s tumble on the ice, she couldn’t prevent the ear-piercing
scream of pain she let out.
“What
the hell?” The man
turned, surprise covering his face. He moved toward her.
“Don’t come any closer,” Abra
shouted. She shot her free hand up in a halt stance. “I’m armed.” She pointed
the knife at him, which by some miracle hadn’t dropped from her hand when she’d
fallen.
The man stopped in his tracks, glanced
down at it, then fisted his hands on his hips, his brows tugging together
across his forehead. “What are you gonna do? Butter me to death?”
Abra took a good look at the knife for
the first time. It wasn’t the steel edged stiletto she thought she’d chosen,
but had a flat, wide head, perfect for spreading jam and not skewering an
intruder. She had to give him praise-points because most men in her experience
didn’t know the differences among everyday cutlery. Ask them about a hunting or
pocketknife, and you’d get a different response entirely.
The man shook his head. “Who are you?”
“Since this is my house shouldn’t I be
asking you that? How did you get in here, because I know for a fact I locked
the door last night.” A slight fib, but he didn’t need to know it.
She tried to pull herself to a standing
position using only her free hand so she could keep the knife brandished in the
other. It was awkward at best since she had no core strength to speak of.
Warm, strong arms slid around her waist
and hauled her up as if she weighed no more than a passing thought.
He stared down at her, his head tilted to
one side, his hands once again fisted on his hips as soon as she stood,
surefooted.
“Since I know for a fact this isn’t your
house,” he said, “you must be the renter Jimmy Marley mentioned. The one who’s
supposed to arrive tomorrow.”
Despite the fact Abra loved a good
sarcastic throwaway line, she didn’t appreciate being the subject of said
mockery. While she swiped at the dust now covering her from chest to knees she
said, “I had a change of plans and that still doesn’t explain who you are or
why you’re in my house, breaking a window.”
“Window was already broken. Marley hired
me to fix it, gave me a key to get in to do so.” His gaze dragged down her
torso. “Before you arrived.”
Suddenly, Abra was hyper-aware of her
bra-less state. Half naked and alone in a big, old, creepy house, with a guy
who knew the difference between everyday cutlery, wasn’t the way she saw her
morning starting. With her brain still
on Vegas-time, her nerves frayed, and her body screaming for coffee, this was a
worse case scenario if ever she saw one.
Tall, gray, and built-like-a-tank continued
to stare at her as if she had two heads, possibly, three.
“You stay here,” she ordered, flourishing
the butter knife at him again. “I’m going upstairs to make a call to confirm
you are who you say you are.” She squinted up at him. “Who are you?”
He shook his head, and if she wasn’t
mistaken, rolled his eyes. “Colton Bree.” He didn’t offer his hand.
She bobbed her head once. Not exactly a
serial killer moniker, but Theodore Bundy was an innocuous sounding,
milquetoast name, so you never knew.
“You stay here,” she said again, then,
because it was never a good idea to turn your back on a potential murderer, she
made her way up the stairs, backwards, the knife still wielded in front of her.
Buy Links
Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/bxaJqk
Add to Goodreads WANT
TO READ list https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58839772-fixing-christmas—a-dickens-holiday-romance—dorrit-s-diner
Trailer: https://youtu.be/2gtKa470H9A
Author Bio and social
sites
Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes Romantic Comedies
about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live
without them. If she can make you cry on one page and bring you out of tears
rolling with laughter the next, she’s done her job as a writer.
Family and food play huge
roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a
family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor
and characters that are as real as they are loving, she brings all topics of
daily life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness and the
desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only
child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that
vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she’s
created the families she wanted as that lonely child.
When she’s not writing
Peggy is usually painting, crafting, scrapbooking or decoupaging old steamer
trunks she finds at rummage stores and garage sales.
Add to Bookbub https://www.bookbub.com/books/fixing-christmas-a-dickens-holiday-romance-dorrit-s-diner-by-peggy-jaeger
As a lifelong diarist, she
caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com
where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go
“What??!”
Social
Media links:
Website: http://peggyjaeger.com/
Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-Jaeger-Author/825914814095072?ref=bookmarks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13478796.Peggy_Jaeger
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/peggy-jaeger
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDR8RRIlssIyS0FYZWeGqsg/videos?view_as=subscriber
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peggyjaeger_author/
Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggy-jaeger-296ab878/
Amazon
Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0
Triberr:
https://triberr.com/tribe/strong-women–loving-men
