Around the Fire with Peggy Jaeger

I finally got to meet one of my favorite authors face to face. We both attended Roz Lee’s Wine, Romance, & more at a book signing at Brook Hollow Winery in Columbia, New Jersey. This fall we’ll also meet again at the Fall In Love With New England reader event. Check it out here and book your ticket early. https://www.fallinlovenewengland.com/
Attending readers will get to meet authors and receive a charm bracelet.  Okay, enough lets get to our guest.
Peggy thanks for joining us. I have your favorite ice-cold Diet Mountain Dew. While I grab it please introduce yourself.
I was a registered nurse for forty years with a Master’s Degree in Geriatric psychology. I ran the first Alzheimer’s nursing home care group in a Wisconsin Nursing care facility when I lived there in the late 1980s. It was a 60 bed facility and every client had some degree of Alzheimer’s Disease. I’m also a wife ( x 35 years to the same man! WOW). I have a grown daughter who is everything I ever dreamed of having in a child. I am a grandma to my 18 month old grandson – who is the joy of my life and a dog mom to a 2 year old Chocolate lab named Maple who is the love of my life and the bane of my existence!
 
That’s an impressive resume. My lovely daughter in law just graduated from nursing school with her RN degree. Congratulations on your marriage. Pete and I recently celebrated our 29th. And I adore your picture and videos of Maple. You are quite a prolific author, but what interests besides writing do you enjoy?
I love to scrapbook and I have this weird hobby of decoupaging old steamer trunks I find at estate sales, or antique shops.
 
I’ll bet after being married for so long your hubby is a rock, but who else is your network or support system?
I am a member of RWA and my local NHRWA chapter. These girls in my chapter make me so happy I am a writer of romance, because their love and support has lifted me on dark writing days when the words wouldn’t come, or the ones that did were horrible!
 
Who or what books or authors are your inspiration?
Nora Roberts and her doppelganger JD Robb is/are my spirit writing warriors. IF I could have 1/10th the career she has had I will be happy.
 
I recently finished The Awakening by her and loved it. Do you have any fun or outrageous talent?
Nope. I’m boring, lol!
 
What is your neighborhood like? Are there any places you frequent? What makes them special?
I live in the woods on a property completely shrouded by tall evergreens and poplars. My nearest neighbor is almost a mile away, so to say I hibernate in winter wouldn’t be wrong, plus I’m a bit of a loner.
 
It sounds wonderful! Let’s chat a bit about writing and books. How do you select the names of your characters?
I give my characters unusual names for sure, and most of them have something to do with an attribute. For instance, in A SHOT IN THE DARK, the hero Kyros Pappandeous’s first name means SUN or LORD and there’s even an annotation that it means LEADER. That’s the one I chose for him, and the reason I named him that. In SABLE, I gifted my heroine that name because her hair is jet black, luxurious and looks “expensive” all synonyms for SABLE.
 
Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
Does anyone ever admit the truth here? OF COURSE I READ THEM! Lol Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t unless you have a steel cage around your ego – which I do. But I really read them to find out why I scored low in someone’s rating index. Most low ratings will have an explanation like, the pace was off, didn’t like the MC, not realistic for a plot. I think it’s important to know what a reader feels when she reads your book. Now do I like reading them?? HellaNo!!! But I find them necessary.
 
What is your favorite childhood book?
THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD. Best book about self motivation ever written.
 
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
I actually track my word count everyday so I can finish a book on deadline. It takes me anywhere from 45 to 50 days to finish an 85000k+ book. Usually 2-3 weeks to finish a novella. Now remember: That’s a first draft. I usually take another 2 weeks to edit before sending it off.
 
Random question time. If they made a movie about your life, what would the title be, and who would play you?
Skinny Legs, Great big Knockers and Bette Midler. Which is actually a song she used to do in one of her live shows.
 
LoL! I saw Bette at Radio City many years ago. She was amazing. If you could only choose one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?
UNSTOPPABLE by SIA. It’s also my word for 2023
 
What was your first job?
At 15 I was a youth conservationist and helped clean up local beaches and parks during the summer months. Got a great tan and lost a lot of weight from walking miles every day and carting brush, debris, and garbage.
 
If someone came up to you and said, “Hey, do that thing you do!” what thing would pop into your head first?
I would probably act like a horse. If I stick my head to one side and blow on one cheek from the inside I sound like a horse baying or whinnying. ( Told you I was boring, LOL)
 
Peggy, thanks again for stopping by my fire. I’m sure everyone wants to know about your book Sable. So please leave us with some information. I can’t wait to see you again this fall.
 

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Always a Bridesmaid ~ Sable
by 
Peggy Jaeger
​
ALWAYS BEING A BRIDESMAID IS GETTING OLD...

Pediatrician Sable Miller is sick and tired of being the go-to, dependable bridesmaid in all her family and friends’ weddings. But her demanding job, the ridiculous hours, and endless family commitments keep her from finding the perfect man. A matchmaking service? Sounds like too much work. Swipe right dating? Not her thing. The bar scene? When was the last time she even had an evening free to go to a bar?
And forget about dating the myriad of on-the-make doctors and residents in her hospital. Besides, workplace romances never work out.
Sable’s options to meet the man of her dreams and start a family are dwindling and time is running out, because she promised herself the next wedding she would attend would be her own.
Kristopher Lee, the Physician’s Assistant assigned to Sable has a crush on his new mentor. But she’s got a hands-off rule when it comes to dating someone she works with. Kris is nothing if not persistent, though. After all, he didn’t survive two tours in the Army without focusing on a goal. And making Sable Miller fall in love with him is his best goal yet.
 
Grab your copy today
https://www.amazon.com/Sable-Always-Bridesmaid-Book-12-ebook/dp/B0BSMW2LXF

Want a more in-depth peek? Peggy gave us an excerpt.
Twice in her career, Sable had given in to temptation and dated someone she worked with. Once had been when she was a pediatric resident, he a staff physician. They’d been having a lovely time together, despite their busy work hours. He’d told Sable he was divorced. When his wife – the one he was definitely not divorced from – showed up in the restaurant they were having dinner in one night and caused a major public scene, Sable learned the truth and put an immediate end to the relationship.  
She learned a valuable lesson from that situation. Namely: fact check. 
Her second work relationship – if you could even call it that – had been with a lab tech. This time she made sure he wasn’t married before agreeing to have drinks with him. After three dates he invited her back to his apartment because he wanted to show her the experiment he was conducting for his Master’s degree in biotech. When he told her she was a perfect candidate to be included in the research, Sable’s Spidey-senses went into hyper-drive. When he said he would need to draw a sample of her blood and get a few locks of her hair, she begged off. She then blocked his number from her phone. Whenever she spotted him in the hospital hallways or the cafeteria, she did a one-eighty and speed-walked in the opposite direction. 
No. Dating someone from work never worked out, and no matter how good-looking or charming or intelligent this new guy was – she wasn’t interested. 
Sable tossed the nurse another headshake. A quick glance at the patient board above the nurse’s station told her she had no patients other than the broken ankle kid to see to at the moment. While she waited for the orthopedic resident to cast the kid’s limb, she decided to make a quick cup of tea.  The break room was, thankfully, empty. With her cup of much-needed caffeine to get her through the night shift, Sable went back out to the station. 
She spotted Gale talking with a guy in a scrub suit. From the back, the description she’d been given of the new Physician’s Assistant drifted into her mind. This guy had short black hair, wide shoulders tapering down into a trim waist/hip area and his scrub top looked as if it had been sewn onto him. 
Obviously, this was the man of the hour. 
Gale caught Sable’s eye and grinned. 
“Here she is now,” she said, ticking her chin toward Sable. “Let me introduce you.” 
With an internal groan, Sable placed her most benign, polite smile – the one her brother Chance called cold with a hint of frosty – on her face, and moved toward the duo. 
Swiping her hand across her lab coat, she prepared to give him a professional handshake when she stopped dead in her tracks as he turned around. 
No. No. It couldn’t be. 
It just…couldn’t. 
“This is our favorite pediatrician,” Gale said, “Dr. Sable Miller. Doc, this is—” 
“Kristopher Lee,” Sable whispered as all the air left her lungs.
​https://www.amazon.com/Sable-Always-Bridesmaid-Book-12-ebook/dp/B0BSMW2LXF

As if this wasn't enough, there's a whole series! www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSNLLJSX