Love Match (Heaven’s Matchmaker book 2) by Peggy Jaeger is a Celebrate Weddings Bookish Event pick #smalltownromance #romance #weddings #giveaway
- N. N. Light
- Jun 11
- 5 min read
Title: Love Match (Heaven’s Matchmaker book 2)
Author: Peggy Jaeger
Genre: Contemporary small town romance/matchmaker
Book Blurb:
Running away from a public scandal may be cowardly, but to Layla Warton, it’s her best option.
After her politically connected fiancé is indicted for a laundry list of crimes, Layla wants to put the public ridicule and shame of her guilty-by-association status behind her. Not easy to do when all her supposed friends and supporters lose her number and the taint of scandal-adjacent destroys the successful design business and life she’s built for herself.
Happy childhood memories and the blessing of a local friend push her toward the tiny New England town of Heaven where she spent summers with her loving grandparents. Hiding out in the town until the scandal dies down is the perfect plan.
With the paparazzi hot on her tail, an ancient family home she needs to get livable, and a contractor too hot for her sanity, Layla worries she’ll never be able to get her old life back.
But would that really be such a bad thing?
Excerpt:
“Olivia will be right with you.”
Layla nodded at the petite, smiling receptionist whose teeth were precision straight and as white as fresh-fallen snow.
I wouldn’t be surprised if her parents were dentists.
The proper thing to do would be to return the girl’s smile, but Layla didn’t have the emotional strength to summon up a polite one, no matter how small it would be.
She hadn’t had the strength to do a lot of things lately. Not since she’d run away from her perfect – or so she’d thought—life.
Layla removed her outercoat and draped it across her lap just as the door to the inner office swung open and Olivia Joyner emerged, her lips parted in a grin as natural as the gorgeous platinum hair on her head.
“You made it.” Olivia crossed the room, her welcoming arms outstretched.
Layla allowed herself to be engulfed in the hug. Breathing in the subtle hint of Beautiful drifting around Olivia, the tension in her body began to relax for the first time since she’d left Florida.
“Come into my office and we can chat.” Olivia hooked their elbows and ushered her through the door, telling the receptionist, “Hold my calls.”
“I’d know this office belonged to you anywhere I saw it,” Layla said, her gaze taking in the room. “Clean, classic furniture. Understated elegance. A calm and soothing vibe. Just like you.”
Olivia laughed. “High praise indeed from an award-winning interior designer.” She pointed to the loveseat, then waited until Layla sat before settling down next to her. “While you’re here maybe you can give me a few updating tips. So.” She took Layla’s hand in hers. Warmth steeped into her bones. “How are you? Really? When you called yesterday, I got the impression you were on your last nerve.”
“The perfect way to describe it.” Her sigh was heavy in the room. “My nerves, so to speak, have been shot to hell ever since everything broke. I can’t sleep and the press have been camped out on my doorstep twenty-four/seven. I moved to a hotel and even registered under a false name, but they still found me. I’ve been holed up in a shoddy, dreary motel room for three months watching everything unfold on the local news and trying to make some sense of what was happening.”
Olivia nodded. “It made the news here. Just a blip, but still.”
Layla heaved another sigh and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she said, “It made the news everywhere. A public scandal is always fodder for the tabloid press. Add in politics, embezzlement, money laundering, and, well…” Tears started to form. Layla took another breath and tried to stop them in their tracks. “Even though I was ignorant of it all, my engagement to the man connected me to the situation.”
“And, unfortunately because of your relationship, you were collateral damage.”
“In every possible way. My so-called friends dropped me dead because they didn’t want to be associated with the nasty allegations. I think they were afraid they were going to be subpoenaed to testify about what they knew or didn’t know, about Dan, his business dealings and everything else.”
“Do you have to? Testify?”
“Thankfully, no. I gave a deposition, showed them all my financial records, my personal calendar, detailing where I was when things were happening, even my phone so they could trace every call. I’m hoping Dan takes a plea deal but that isn’t likely considering he’s shouting his innocence from the rooftops, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I was cleared of having any knowledge of what he was involved in.” She shook her head. “I never had access to his business accounts and my name was on nothing business related. Three years with the man and you’d think I’d have an inkling he wasn’t who he claimed to be. I feel like such an idiot. A blind idiot.”
“That’s the last thing you are. The Layla Warton I know is smart, savvy, and doesn’t suffer fools. Dan was a conman and a very good one. He showed you what he wanted you to see and hid who he really was. Not only to you, but everyone, including his constituents and business clients.”
Layla nodded. “They’re the ones I feel the most for. They put their financial faith in him, and he betrayed them in the worst possible way to the tune of almost a billion dollars.”
She’d put her faith in him too and backed it up by believing in his investment advice. When it was revealed he’d taken her money – and that of everyone else who’d invested with him – and used it to fund his campaign for mayor and on his various shady business deals, she’d been as blindsided as everyone else. With her funds not quite depleted but less than she’d managed to save, and her reputation in both business and personal dealings sullied by her association with the man, all Layla wanted to do was crawl under a rock and brood.
Coming to Heaven might not exactly be the underbelly of a rock, but at least she was hidden from the public scrutiny she’d been under for the past four months here now in the tiny, New England town.
Olivia squeezed her hand.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Universal link https://books2read.com/u/3kg9gW
Bookbub
What makes your featured book a must-read?
If you like small town, friends to lovers, sweet with heat matchmaker romances, this book is for you. If you like redemption books with strong female characters, and a love story that takes its time unfolding, I recommend this book!
Giveaway –
Enter to win a $10 Amazon gift card:
Open Internationally.
Runs June 9 – June 17, 2025.
Winner will be drawn on June 18, 2025.
Author Biography:
Peggy Jaeger writes contemporary romances and rom coms 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 aspects of 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.
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??!"
Website/Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger
Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/
