Peggy Jaeger's Blog, page 4

Do you love FREEEEEEE ebooks?

…then I’ve got a deal for you!

My publisher just informed me that my Cinderella retelling, DIRTY DAMSELS is FREEEEEEEEEEE in Amazon Kindle until july 21.

If you love books about strong women, women who had it all, lost it,then got it back on their own, finding love along the way, this book is for you.

What if Cynderella had a one-night stand with a man named Prince?

“When I first saw Cynderella all covered in soot in that sexy maid uniform, I knew I wanted to be her Prince. She’s a smart and savvy businesswoman who’s built her cleaning company from the ground up. But now that Dirty Damsels was booming, I’ve been hired to arrange a hostile takeover. But the temptation of having her was too much to ignore… We ended up spending one night together–a night neither of us will forget.

Now, I want more.

I need more. I want to spend every night, skin-on-skin, with my beautiful Ella. Problem is, when she finds out who I really am, she’ll never forgive me.”

Readers who like the following topics will enjoy DIRTY DAMSELS: Sexy romance, Modern Fairytale, NYC, female CEO, Corporate Romance, Single woman, female business owner, HEA

RUN RUN RUN today to Amazon to get your freeeeeee kindle copy before July 21~

This book has won numerous writing and cover awards since it was released in 2019!

Happy reading, kids ~ Peg

A Christmas in July sale…

for all my DICKENS HOLIDAY ROMANCE BOOKS.

I love a CHRISTMAS IN JULY sale, don’t you?

Until July 31st, all the DORRIT’S DINER Dickens Holiday Romance e-books are on sale for just 99cents. This is a great way to introduce you to the wonderful world of Dickens, and my 6 additions to the fabulous series.

Start with book 1:

ANGEL KISSES AND HOLIDAY WISHES

Can a first love be rekindled when the past is filled with heartache?

After a personal tragedy, Sage Hamilton left the town she’d grown up in and the boy she’d given her heart to. With a vow never to return, Sage forged on with her life in order to forget the sadness of her past.

Keith Mills loved Sage from the first moment he spotted her ambling down the hallway of their middle school. And she’d felt the same about him. Or so he’d thought until she’d walked away from everything they’d meant to one another with a tearful and rushed goodbye.

But now, eighteen years later, she’s back and, as the town’s new doctor, it looks like she’s staying. Can Keith put the hurt of Sage’s dismissal to bed for good? And will she want to rekindle the love that had burnt so bright all those years ago?

then,

SANTA BABY

It’s Christmas Eve morning in the tiny New England town of Dickens. Santa’s arrival is imminent, and a hint of snow is in the air.Amy Dorrit is just about to open her popular diner for the breakfast rush when she discovers an abandoned baby on her back doorstep.Amy knows she should call the authorities and turn the infant over to them, but she just can’t. Thoughts of her own abandonment as a baby flood through her and she wants to keep the little one out of the hands of the authorities until the mother – hopefully –returns.But will the mom come back? And if she doesn’t, what is Amy prepared to do about the baby who has, already, claimed her heart?

Now that you know Dorrit’s original story, proceed as follows:

FIXING Christmas

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 despite being a little neurotic and a 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?

SASHA’S SECRET SANTA

After a terrifying incident derails Sasha Charles’ career and confidence, she moves back to her hometown of Dickens to heal, reorganize, and start over.The only problem? The paralyzing panic attacks that plague her whenever she thinks about going back to nursing. Sasha is mentally, and emotionally stuck, and has no idea how to move forward.

Steve Caldwell is the new Director of Services at Dickens Memorial Hospital. After witnessing her save the life of a local resident in Dorrit’s Diner, he knows Sasha would be perfect for the new trauma center he’s planning. When she refuses his job offer outright, he sets out to change her mind.

But Sasha has thick, protective walls erected around her so Steve must first break through them. With patience and kindness, he does. As the two grow closer, each begin to have second thoughts on what their futures should look like, until idle, small town gossip threatens to derail their budding relationship.

With the imminent arrival of Christmas, will Steve be able to convince Sasha he has her best interests at heart?

DON’T MESS WITH THE MISTLETOE

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.

and finally

A CHEF’S KISS Christmas.

Successful Chef Anton Saparosa had the perfect life. Great marriage; beautiful and adoring wife; trendy, SoCal restaurant frequented by celebrities – many of them his friends.

Then Covid hit.

Anton’s perfect life dissolved before his eyes. With nothing left to keep him in California he starts an itinerant cross-country journey searching for something to give his life meaning again.

Happenstance lands him in the tiny town of Dickens just as Dorrit’s Diner is thrown into chaos.

Literary Agent Portia Avon needs a rest. A messy divorce has her craving quiet and the company of her friend and client A.B. Cards, nee Abra Bree. She comes from the western heat of California to the eastern cold of Dickens and plans to do nothing but rest, relax, and read during her holiday stay.

When Portia spots a familiar face in Dorrit’s, she’s confused. Why is Anton Saparosa, one of the most recognizable chefs in California, working as a fry cook in Abra’s mom’s diner, and going by the name Tony Smith?

A question Portia wants an answer to, but one Tony isn’t willing to share, especially with a woman he can’t stop thinking about.

The Dickens world is very near and dear to my heart and after you read these award-winning books, I’m certain it will be to yours, too!

Call me vain…

go ahead. It’s true when it comes to my books.

Look at this:

Amazon does this rotating thing on your home page where every couple of days they move your book listings around. This is today’s arrangement and I have to say how much I love this pairing. The entire ( so far) Heaven’s Matchmaker collection and my FBI Profilers/serial killer book are the first thing you see when you get to my page. Two genres that couldn’t be more diverse and opposite! One’s about love and happily ever afters, and the other is about murder.

Honestly, how cool is that, lol?!

I love seeing the entire Heaven’s Matchmaker collection together because the covers are so darn pretty. And I thank myself for that because I designed them. Most people by now know the history behind book 1, MIX AND MATCH. That’s my daughter on her wedding day on the cover. I saw the full picture in her proofs and fell in love with it. I asked her if I could use it for the cover of a book and she said absolutely not. LOL. But then I told her I wanted the picture, sans her head, and just her hands and the flowers. She told me we had to purchase the rights from the photographer and he named a price I couldn’t afford to pay. So my dream for a series of books based on that cover went the way of the dinosaur.

And then…

I received the rights to the picture for my birthday from my daughter. She negotiated a much more reasonable price with her photographer, and viola! A book series was born.

I designed the cover for RETRIBUTION as well. If you’ve read it, you know there’s a backstory that fits into the hand coming out of the coffin. It doesn’t play a major role in the story, but explains the reason behind the retirement of one of the FBI profilers. I don’t like spoilers so I don’t want to give too much away, but that cover gives me such joy when I see it because I love that darn book so much.

In fact, I venture to say that these 4 books are the top four in my Peggy Jaeger books I want to reread list, and that I’m proud of.

Please don’t think I’m conceited, because that’s the last thing I am.

I’m just simply proud to be at a point in my life where I am finally doing something I’ve been dreaming about since I was eight years old and writing stories in my diary.

My books aren’t only available from Amazon, though, so if you’re not a B*zos supporter, no worries. You can also find them at these locations and on my website. There’s a drop-down menu above that gives you an order form.

Here are the other places you can find my work:

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Hoopla

Libby

And like I said, you can always get books from mywebsite.

But I do love that graphic today!

~ Peg

Build a Book Boyfriend Podcast interview…

In May of this year I was honored to be a guest on romance writer Lisette’s BUILD A BOOK BOYFRIEND podcast.

We could have talked for hours about romance, tropes, subgenres… and we spent so much of the interview just laughing and giggling. I love when I can talk about romance books with someone who is as into reading them as I am!!

The interview is up on Substack and you can listen to it here: Podcast interview

And if you’re a Substack subscriber please subscribe to BUILD A BOOK BOYFRIEND

Happy listening, kids.

~Peg

A little reminder for a major milestone…

for me ( !)

Today is Sunday, July 6,2025. The reason I’m telling you the date is so that you have a date reference for what I’m about to tell you.

This Wednesday, July 9, 2025 there is a new Barnes and Noble store opening in Keene, NH, which just so happens to be my hometown. At 5 o’clock, and going until 7 pm, I will have a booksigning, author meet and greet at the store! My first in a major bookseller chain! To say I am excited is a misnomer. I am practically catatonic with glee! This is such a milestone for any author and it’s come 10 years after I started writing for a living.

Yeah, I know. I’m a slow starter in most things in my life, writing no exception.

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Keene

Monadnock Marketplace

32 Ash Brook Road #4BKeene, NH 03431
(603) 602-1669

View Store Details

I am simultaneously jumping for joy and dreading the whole experience. The jumping for joy part is self explainable. The dreading? It’s because I’m a terrified NO ONE will show up. And I mean NO ONE. I’ve done book signings at a local indie bookstore over the years and have sat there for 2 hours and smiled at people who just walked on by and wanted nothing to do with me, merely intent on strolling through a bookstore unaccosted. So if you are reading this and you live in the Keene, NH area and any area within 20 miles, PLEASE come out and see me!

Shameless beg, I know, but like I said, I am desperate, LOL.

I sincerely hope to see some of my friends and some readers as well. The store has a full stock of my traditionally published books, so if you don’t have any of those, this is the perfect time to get them, support a new store opening in our town in this horrible economy *(yay!) and support a local writer ( Me!)

July 9, 2025 from 5-7pm. Be there or be square ( and that right there tells you how old I am!!!)

Summer reading challenges…

aren’t just for kids.

Remember when we were kids, back in the day (LOL), and summer rolled around and before you left school for the summer you were handed a SUMMER READING LIST that you had to complete before school started up again in the Fall? Older grades were also charged with writing a book report for their favorite book read during the summer break.

The purpose of this “challenge” was to keep kids reading during the months off from school so they wouldn’t lose the momentum of reading. My grade school even did a math challenge just to ensure we didn’t lose any of our skills learned during the year – which is a proven fact happens to kids at certain ages if they don’t keep “practicing” what they’ve learned.

I loved those reading lists.

On the first day of vacay I would march to the local library and take out three of the books on my list at a time. I was always a fast reader, so I usually blew through my summer list before July ended, wrote my report – in longhand because we didn’t have laptops back then. Yes, I am a cusp-boomer/gen X baby – and then would keep going back to the library to read other books by some of the fav authors I’d discovered with the list.

Judy Blume. Carloyn Keene. Beverly Cleary. Roald Dahl ( although as an adult I learned about how problematic he was), Laura Ingalls Wilder. These were all on my list as I moved from grade school to middle school. I think this summer, 1971, I read every book these fabulous authors had in print – all gleaned from the library.

Do kids still have summer reading challenges and lists these days? I wonder. I don’t have little kids running around my house anymore, but I know my daughter had a list when she was in grade school in the 1990s.

The funny thing is, as an adult, I still love a summer reading challenge and a summer reading list, and I make one every year. Typically, because it’s vacation time for most of the developed world, time devoted to recreational reading goes up in the summer. With the birth of the Kindle, Nook, and the capability to read on any device you own, plus audiobooks, people on vacation no longer have to lug pounds of print books in their luggage when they travel. You can pack thousands of books, with no added weight, right into your carryon. And you can read anywhere! Beach, boat, plane, cabin in the woods, tent.

Do you have a summer reading list? Do you like them?

Here’s a hint for those of you who never know when a new book is being released. If you are on GOODREADS, you can scroll to the menu and hit BROWSE. You’ll see a dropdown choice titled NEW RELEASES. You can even specify for which type of book your searching. Once you drag down to the upcoming releases, you can scroll through the next four months to see when new books are coming out, again filtering down to what you typically like to read. Or even if you are looking for a new genre to tackle.

I do this weekly (yes, I am a little obsessed!) because I don’t ever want to miss a book by one of my one click authors. Since the books are divided into the months they will be out in the world, it’s easy to make a summer reading list for yourself.

Or a Fall one.

Or even a Winter list.

Yeah…I’m obsessed!

Summer reading challenges. They’re so much fun.

Now…go read, peeps.

~Peg

The drama of AI…

in the book community.

If you’re on TIKTOK ( which I am) there’s always some kind of drama around BOOKTOK, the reader/author division of the app. Drama pushes narratives, which pushes likes/reposts/comments which pushes the all-important engagement and ups the algorithms.

The latest drama involves 3 big Booktok content creators ( the app’s name for people who make videos) and an app called Character AI, which basically takes characters authors have created and writes stories around them. Without the author’s permission. And by a bot. Without compensation.

It’s much more complicated than that, but the offshoot is that these 3 creators have done endorsements for the app/program.

Why is that so egregious to the BOOKTOK community, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

Booktok is one of- if not THE – largest community that continually supports, bolsters, and promotes INDEPENDENT AUTHORS. And these 3 creators have professed their absolute love and backing of indie authors over the years. To have them turn against everything they have been espousing and support – for money and promotion – a system that not only does not pay indie authors for using their material, but basically steals it to do so, is against everything the BOOKTOK community stands for.

There are thousands of indie authors who use Booktok to promote their books, gain new readers, and interact with other people who love to read and write as much as they do. I am one of these authors. I’ve met so many new reader-friends who like what I write and read and want to discuss it. I’ve garnered many new readers who have bought my books, liked them, and have come back for more. That is community. That is fellowship. That is people who share a common goal and experience.

AI will be the death of the indie author if allowed to continue on unfettered as it has. META has already taken millions of words by authors to train their bots to “write.” And again, without telling the authors or compensating them. There is no other profession where using the work done by someone else for your benefit without paying them for it would be allowed.

I never use AI in my books, covers, or any part of my writing. All the words come from my head. All the plots come from my imagination. All the writing is done by me typing away for hours, daily, 365 days a year. I now have a rider in the front of my indie books repeating this.

Today I saw over forty video posts from authors – baby and seasoned – who condemned these three booktokkers for going to the dark side. This is my feeble way of protesting what those 3 have done. By informing you, just in case you haven’t heard about the drama, is my way of assuring you I don’t use AI and to let you know there are people out there who are cheating their way through the production of a book. I will never call them authors or writers because they aren’t.

How will you know if the book you are reading is AI generated? I,unfortunately, don’t have an answer for that. But if you read a certain genre of book and by many authors, you may begin to see similar plotlines/characters/ and word choices that will clue you to the fact that the book was not really WRITTEN as much as AIWritten.

Lordy, this career just keeps getting more convoluted every day….

Dreams come true when you…

…table your fears.

Okay, that title is a little cheesy, but… I did something I’ve never done before. I called a major bookseller and asked if they’d carry my books in their store. Here’s the 411: My town has a brand new BARNES AND NOBEL bookstore opening on July 9, 2025. I wanted to see if they’d carry my books since I am a local author and most of my titles are in wide distribution now, B&N included. I received and email from the store manager a few days after I sent that ask and…

I am so indescribably delighted to announce I will be a guest of the store, at a booksigning on opening day!!!

Here is the official notice on the B&N website:

In Store  |  Wednesday, July 09, 2025 5:00 PM ET
Special Event, Author Event

Grand Opening: Peggy Jaeger – Local Author Book SigningAbout this Event

Join us in store as we celebrate local author Peggy Jaeger. Peggy is a Keene local and will be here to sign copies of her romance novel Dearly Beloved.

“Colleen O’Dowd manages a thriving bridal business with her sisters in Heaven, New Hampshire. After fleeing Manhattan and her cheating ex-fiancé, Colleen still believes in happily ever afters. But with a demanding business to run, her sisters to look after, and their 93-year-old grandmother to keep out of trouble, she’s worried she’ll never find Mr. Right.”

Keene Monadnock Marketplace 32 Ash Brook Road #4B Keene, NH 03431
(603) 602-1669

SOmeone once told me that luck is really just preparation meeting opportunity.

My prep was my 65 title book list. The opportunity? A new store coming to town and me feeling brave ( for once!) to ask for something I wanted.

The result? A dream come true – my books in a major retail bookseller and a booksigning at the actual brick and mortar store.

Can you spell GOBSMACKED???

I sincerely hope you can join me if you are in the area on July 9th. I would lovelovelove to see/meet/talk with you and share with you this monumentous moment for me!!!

I’m still pinching myself trying to wake up from this lovely dream ( come true!)

The road to discouragement and disillusionment is paved with…

…poor book sales.

I am going to try and not make this the downer post it is sounding like running about in my head right now. Pray for me, lol.

I have been in the business of writing/publishing for 10 years, almost 11 at this point. I have over 65 titles currently out in the world, over 25 with traditional publishers. I have been on podcasts for bookstagrammers, won many amazing contests for my books, been featured in 2 highly valued e-zines about books. I’ve been to over 30 book signings, 8 of my own and 22 multiauthor events. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on ads promoting my books on the huge social platforms where ads are encouraged. I’ve done book giveaways, been a guest at dozens of facebook parties, and basically done everything that every book marketing analyst says to do to get your books in front of readers. I sell books directly from my website and do preorders for all the conferences and book events I attend. I’ve done ARCS giveaways to readers I don’t know hoping agianst hope they’ll write a review. My return rate on that is ( this is for the last book I promoted this way) 100 arcs/14 reviews.

And we all know authors live and die by book sales and book reviews.

I promote myself and my books every single day on my social platforms. And only about 20 percent of the promos are “buy this book” ones. Most are exactly what the marketing geniuses say to do – promote yourself and your brand: Be real. Be engaging. Be funny. Send the message your video/ad/post is worth viewing.

And I’m tired.

And you know what else I am?
I’m discouraged.

My book sales are nil. Really. NIL!!! Nada. Zilch. No bueno.

If I had to support myself, I’d need three jobs to just to get by.

Someone close to me (okay…my hubby.) says it’s because I write in a glutted genre and he’s not totally wrong. Covid brought out the I-can-write-a-book-and-make-millions crowd who basically, a. can’t write for shit, and b. must have had disposable income to spend on ad after ad after ad to promote their “work,” because all I see are videos and ads promoting it.

They are selling books. Or at least they appear to be. I’m not privy to their KDP page and they could be lying for all I know.

In the good old days when marketing was done for you by the publishers, writers could just crank out the work and someone else was charged with getting your name in front of the book buying public. With the advent of the indie author, this job falls to the author, along with writing, distributing, formatting, editing, cover production and then hawking the book.

All writers want to do is write. I know hundreds of authors and I have never EVER heard one of them say they would rather be marketing their books than writing them.

Not one.

That tells you something right there, doesn’t it.

Even writing this post and then uploading it to all my media sites is taking time away from writing my next book. I sound like I am whining, and you know? I kinda am. Okay, no kinda about it. I am whining. But the frustration is real. Just once I’d like to actually come out on top financially when I have a new release.

I don’t know any other profession that’s a sustainable lifestyle with so little income and such a load of outgo in the finance department.

Okay, whining, for sure.

There is one major factor in my writing career I am doing moving forward. I am not going to be doing the amount of multiauthor booksignings I have been doing the past 10 years. Right now I am a small cog in a wheel. The majority of readers attending this conventions seem to want to read smut ( and that’s the term for it. It’s not a prejorative), romantasy, dark romance, and mafia romance.

I don’t write any of those and am not going to start now just to sell a few books.

I write mostly small town, 40+ h//h characters who have lived lives and ar looking for love. I write everything from sweet to steamy with open door. What the characters are telling me is the story I give them, so if that means nothing more than a kiss, okay. If it means getting frisky between the sheets ( and other fun places), okay. My niche is small, and because if that I am not finding readers at conferences or on the social anymore.

So, moving forward, I am eschewing the big events for smaller, individual ones. Library events are my favorite! The cost is nothing except a donated book and you actually get to talk to people and commune with them.

I sell books on my website and will continue doing so because if I’m not going to big events, I need a way for people who do want my books to get them autographed, personalized, and get some swag to them.

I have one new big event booked for 2026 and so far that is it.

I have 6 more events for this year ( 4 multiauthor, one personal booksigning, and one library event.) and then I am done.

Done.

In between i will still try to hawk my books on socials, but I am hoping I won’t be so whining about it moving forward.

Thanks for listening to this rant.

I really am tired and just want to write.

Writing mode…

I have been frantically working on my newest FBI thriller these past few weeks. I spent most of May writing it to the detriment of marketing any of my other books. I rarely posted on Instagram and only did marginal new material on facebook, just “sharing” many other posts from friends. I did keep up with my tiktok posts because I could film a week’s worth in one day then schedule them to release daily. And to be honest, it’s easier to make a 15 second video than to write a blog post or design a new graphic for the other socials.

I’m telling you all this to make a point. My book sales have tanked. Like, sinkhole dropped. They are flirting with the Earths crust tanked.

I haven’t sold a book/ebook/audiobook in weeks. If I was writing to support myself I’d be either starving or out on the streets by now, lol.

Marketing is my least favorite thing to do in the publishing world, that is no lie. I am not a natural born salesperson and I get hives thinking about having to hawk my wares.

One of the main reasons I have stopped applying to big book, multiple author booksignings is because I am so bad at tooting my own horn and I am sick of losing money at each event because of poor or no sales. Readers walk by my table and I get nervous trying to draw them in, so they typically just smile and walk by to buy books at other tables.

If I had any kind of disposable Income ( like Powerball winnings!) I would hire a publicity firm and let them do all the marketing for me.

Unfortunately, Powerball has not shined down on me, lol, so it’s up to me to push my books.

But I really just want to write and finish my next FBI profiler book.

A rock and hard place? Yup.

Ah, the fabulous life of a writer…. if they only knew.