Hi, Linda. Thanks so much for having me visit today. I’ve been looking forward to it and I’ve wanted to introduce you to Ursula San Valentino for a while, now. I sat down with her recently to talk about our planned visit with you because I wanted to prepare her for what to expect and get her thoughts on what she wanted to talk about. As usua,l when Ursula gets going, we got a little…off tangent. Here’s an example:
Peggy: So, Urs, you know we’re going to be on my writer friend Linda Nightingale’s blog in few weeks, right?
Ursula: (waves her hand like she’s swatting a bug away); Yeah, yeah. I know. Do I gotta get my hair done before we go? It’s getting close to the holidays and my girl is booked up. I don’t know if she can squeeze me in and I don’t want my hair to look brutto when we’re filming.
Peggy: ( Shakes her head), No, Ursula. Don’t you remember? I told you we’re being interviewed on-line, not on camera. No film. And your hair doesn’t look ugly at all. It’s fine.
Ursula: What’a’ya mean, on a line? I gotta stand on some line to talk to this lady? That ain’t gonna be no fun, especially since it’s gotten so cold outside.
Peggy: (Another head shake.) No, no On-line. Like, on the Internet. We’re guests on her writing blog—
Ursula: You know, Sonny says that Internet thing is a dangerous place. All kinds a’weirdos and losers with nothing better to do all day then type. And why is it called the Internet? I don’t get it. If it’s a net, that means it’s captures stuff and things get caught in it, right? I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t wanna be trapped somewhere right before Christmas.
Peggy: (starting to sweat a little). Um, I think it’s called that because it’s a vast amount of computers that all talk to one another, computer to computer, internally. You know, like a network? Inter-net. Get it?
Ursula: (squints at me) Computers talk to one another? Like, on the phone?
Peggy: Not exactly. (Takes a calming breath) But you don’t have to worry about any of that, Ursula. Linda’s just going to ask us some questions about Regina’s bakery and her life –
Ursula: What she gotta know about my piccolo ragazza for?
Peggy: Because that’s the purpose of the blog interview. You were going to tell her about the bakery, ANGIE’S, and talk a bit about Regina and where’s she’s at in her life these days. The divorce, how busy she’s been with the holidays coming up and everything else. Remember?
Ursula: Where she’s at? She’s at the same place she always is: over the bakery in the apartment Sonny set her up in. She ain’t going nowhere else. At least not as I’ve heard. Have up heard something? Is she moving? Leaving the city? Why’d she want to do that?
Peggy: (tries to calm Ursula as her voice rises). No, she’s staying put, don’t worry.
Ursula :(clicks her tongue and presses her lips together) Telling a mother not to worry about their babies is just dumb. Stupido. We always worry, whether they’re bambini or full grown. And I worry about Regina more than the rest of my children. She’s had some real tragedy in her life. A loss I wouldn’t wish on anyone, not even my pazzo daughter-in-laws.
Peggy: Your son’s wives aren’t crazy, Urs.
Ursula: (Nods, vehemently) Bah! And lazy, too. Do you know they never help me when I have Sunday dinner? No offers t’cleanup, or even bring something to pass. Lazy, I say. (She puts her first two fingers against her lips and makes a spitting sound, as if cursing them)
Peggy: Okay, I’m not going to change your mind about them, so let’s get back to the interview about Regina.
Ursula: You know, now that I think about it, I’m not so sure this is a good idea, me talking outta school about my baby girl. She’s private like, you know? I think we should talk about something else with this lady writer friend of yours. Maybe cooking. Does she cook? Think she’d like some of my recipes? I got a great one for octopus that I serve on Christmas Eve when we have the Feast of the Seven fishes. It’s Sonny’s favorite. Think she’d like that? I mean, who doesn’t like octopus?
Peggy: (with an eye roll) Um…I’ll ask her.
So, Linda, do you like octopus? Asking for…a friend. And P.S. I think we may have to rethink our visit with you…
~
Release day 12.12.18!!!
~
Blurb:
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?
Excerpt:
It had been a long, long time since a guy’s hands had been on me in anything resembling a carnal way. My ex had decamped to parts unknown five years ago after signing the divorce papers and I’d been so busy rebuilding my life that adding any kind of relationship to it wasn’t even a notion. Besides, with my hovering parents, one of whom worked for me while the other popped in daily to check up on their only daughter, I had enough on my plate fending off the men they wanted to introduce me to. Guys who, for the most part, had shady lifestyles, carried concealed, and owed my father innumerable favors. And by favors I mean the kind that usually get signed for in blood and paid back the same way.
Welcome to mia familia.
Buy Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JF1WQKT/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i13
WILD ROSE PRESS : https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/6235-christmas-and-cannolis.html?search_query=peggy+jaeger&results=18
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/christmas-and-cannolis-peggy-jaeger/1129784206?ean=2940161544976
Author bio:
Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them.
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, Peggy 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 has created the families she wanted as that lonely child.
Tying into her love of families, her children’s book, THE KINDNESS TALES, was illustrated by her artist mother-in-law.
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.
In 2013, she placed first in two categories in the Dixie Kane Memorial Contest: Single Title Contemporary Romance and Short/Long Contemporary Romance.
In 2017 she came in 3rd in the New England Reader’s Choice contest for A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS and was a finalist in the 2017 STILETTO contest for the same title.
In 2018, Peggy was a finalist in the HOLT MEDALLION Award and once again in the 2018 Stiletto Contest.
A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, she is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.
Website/Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger
Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-Jaeger-Author/825914814095072?ref=bookmarks
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You-Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDR8RRIlssIyS0FYZWeGqsg/videos
BookGorilla: https://www.bookgorilla.com/author/B00T8E5LN0/peggy-jaeger/kcc