One of my beloved favorite authors, Peggy Jaeger, has a new book out TODAY! It’s a holiday romance novel called Fixing Christmas!
From Peggy…
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.
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.
