Fixing Christmas by @peggy_jaeger is a Christmas and Holiday Festival pick #holidayromance #giveaway
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  • N. N. Light
    • Dec 8, 2022
    • 6 min read

Fixing Christmas by @peggy_jaeger is a Christmas and Holiday Festival pick #holidayromance #giveaway



Title: FIXING CHRISTMAS


Author: PEGGY JAEGER


Genre: Holiday romance, Dickens Holiday Romance, romcom, smalltown, later in life, widower, coming home again, opposites attract


Book 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 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?


Excerpt:


“Would you like anything else? More coffee?”


“I’m good.” He rose and took his dishes to the sink. “Thanks for this. I probably would have just made a sandwich at home. Breakfast was way better, especially since I didn’t have to do the cooking.”


“Well, I’ve got a ton of waffle mix I couldn’t use in a month of Sundays, so if you find yourself childless again and have a hankering for some, stop on over. Now that we know the waffle maker works, it might as well get some use while I’m here.”


The words were out before she realized their implication. Heat flew up her neck and she imagined if she looked in the mirror her face would look like a jar of red and robust pasta sauce coming to a rolling boil.


“That wasn’t a come-on,” she said, then flushed even more. “I mean—”


He turned from the sink and leaned back against it. As he studied her, that all-engrossing stare of his making her pulse jump and her lower body tingle, she licked her lips and tried to get a grip on the nerves that suddenly popped to the surface.


“Not that you’re not, you know…attractive. I mean, of course you are. You know what you look like. You must own a mirror. I just meant, well, I’m not looking to start anything while I’m here. With you. Or anyone. Romantically, I mean. I’ve got a bo—project, to finish and need to devote all my time to that. I’ll be leaving again in the New Year, so…” she stopped and blinked. “So.”


Good Lord. When did she develop diarrhea of the mouth? And why only around Bree did this new affliction surface?


She stood across from him, her hands shaking so much she clasped them together while he kept staring at her, his expression unreadable. Her hands were sweating and she knew if she checked, her armpits were probably working overtime.


“Say something,” she finally blurted when she couldn’t take his silence anymore.


“I understood what you meant.”


“You…did?”


He nodded.


“Oh. Okay. Good, then. Good.”


That head tilt came again as the corners of his eyes narrowed.


Once again, Abra swallowed. “What?”


After another moment of tortured silence, he shook his head. “I should get going.” He pushed off the counter and walked toward the front of the house where he’d left his jacket on the foyer hall tree.


Abra followed him.


Donning it, he turned around and said, “Thanks again for the chow. Those home fries did your mom proud.”


“You’re welcome,” she automatically replied. “And, thanks for saying that.”


With his jacket buttoned and his hand on the doorknob, he hesitated a moment before opening the door as his gaze zeroed back in on her.


“What?” she said.


He shook his head. “You ask that a lot.”


“Because I can’t read you.”


“Read me?”


“Yeah. One minute it looks like you’re going to ask me a question, the next I’m expecting a lecture about something I’ve said or done. I’m a really good facial expression reader. I have to be for what I do. And I can usually tell what someone thinks about me, or about something I’ve said. You though? You’re a blank wall. It’s…frustrating. Damn frustrating.”


“So you don’t know what I’m thinking right now?”


“Not a clue in a snowstorm.”


He bit down on a corner of his mouth. Then, in a move she truly never saw coming, he let go of the knob, lifted his hand and slid it around the back of her neck.


Abra couldn’t move if commanded to by God above and the angels chiming in for good measure. The front of their bodies bumped when he moved in closer, his hand still cupping the nape of her neck. Abra jolted from the feel of his work-hardened fingers against her skin. He put no pressure on the grip but managed to hold her in place with just the expectation of command.


He brought his face within a sigh of hers, his eyes wide open and focused on her own. The black in his pupils grew to the point they almost obliterated the blue housed in them. Abra gasped.


There was no mistaking what was on his face, in his eyes at that moment. Lust, desire, want. Pure, simple, stark.


“Got any idea what I’m thinking right now?” he whispered, as he rubbed her nose from side to side with his own, his breath fanning across her cheeks as he spoke.


Abra’s mouth went bone-dry. She couldn’t form a word in reply, so she hummed her response in the affirmative.


“Good,” he said, that gorgeous half-grin popping up again.


And then he kissed her.


A simple brush of his warm, soft lips against her open ones, nothing more. It couldn’t have lasted more than a second.


Why, then, did it feel like the earth had shifted on its axis?


Bree pulled back so he could look at her.


“Why…why did you do that?” she asked.


“Damned if I know.”


With that said, he opened the door and walked down the porch steps into the dark night.


From the doorway, Abra watched him until his shadow disappeared at the end of the lane.


Slowly, she closed the door, then laid her head against the solid, hard wood.


“What…the…actual…hell?”


Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):






Share a holiday family tradition:


Every year since I had my daughter in 1989 I try to find book ornaments for the tree. We have an entire collection of Madeline, Winnie the Pooh, and Wizard of Oz ornaments, in addition to several other of the old GOLDEN Books like the Little Engine that Could and Pokey the dog. These are the first ornaments that go up on the tree every year when we decorate. When she lived at home my daughter got to decide where they were placed on the tree. Now that’s my job, and when he is old enough it will be grandson’s job. Since he in only 1 now, that will be a few years, LOL.


Why is your featured book perfect to get readers in the holiday mood?


Small town holiday romances are rich with a sense of community, joy, gossip, and secrets, LOL. Abra Charles has a whopper of a secret and when she comes home after a disastrous love affair, she is heaven-bent on keeping it. Of course, since this is a small town, that proves difficult. If you like slow burn, opposites attract romances mixed with humor, angst, and small town vibes, FIXING CHRISTMAS is perfect for your holiday reading list.


Giveaway –

Enter to win a $75 Amazon (US or Canada) Gift Card.

You must have an active Amazon US or Amazon Canada account to be eligible. Open internationally.

Runs December 1 – 31

Drawing will be held on January 3, 2023.



Author Biography:


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.


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:




Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0


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