Thursday, January 24, 2019

Book Spotlight - "Hope's Dream" by Peggy Jaeger


How Hope's Dream came to be (from Peggy Jaeger)...

When the call went out from the publishers of the Wild Rose Press for selections to a new series they were starting titled THE DEERBOURNE INN, I just knew I had to write and submit something.


The setting is an historic Inn in the fictional town of Deerbourne Vermont, a sleepy little New England berg were visitors to the DEERBOURNE INN find love, a ghost or two, a world class chef, and a place rich in history. The community of Deerbourne is rife with quirky characters, beautiful scenery, and intrigue.


Well, I live in a sleepy New England town that is also rich in character, scenery, and intrigue, so writing something for the series seemed like a no-brainer to me. What’s that old saw: Write what you know?


And it was.


I’d had the basic premise of a small town romance milling about in my head for a while but I hadn’t been able to flesh it out. I knew I wanted the heroine to be struggling financially for some reason, and that she had given up on the dream of a college education because of those struggles. As soon as I read the Deerbourne bible (the outline of the series and the town) from the publishers, my brain went into hyder-drive and the plotline for HOPE’S DREAM came to fruition in less than a day.


Twenty-four hours after that my heroine and hero were fleshed out, along with their back stories and character arcs.


Two weeks later I had a completed manuscript that I sent along to my editor at WRP for consideration in the series.


Two weeks after that I received the okay and a contract.


And the rest, as the kids say these days, is history. Hee Hee


HOPE’S DREAM tells the story of Hope Kildaire, a 27 year old ski instructor at Sugar Bush Resort, and Tyler Coleman, a NY lawyer who has come to town seeking her out. The reason he has been sent to the tiny town isn’t revealed until 2/3 of the way into the story, and when it is, Hope’s life changes forever. Hope had to drop out of college and the Nurse Practitioner program she’d always longed for in order to take care of her mother who was severely injured in a car accident in which Hope’s father was killed. Hope is the sole wage earner for herself and her mother and it’s been rough to make ends meet.


I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but suffice it to say when Hope finds out the reason Tyler is really in town, and not just for a ski vacation, she is dumbfounded.


Blurb


Hope Kildaire gave up her dream of becoming a nurse practitioner when a car accident killed her father and left her mother an invalid. Working two jobs and caring for her mother leaves the twenty-seven-year-old with no time for fun or relationships. When a law firm representing her paternal grandparents sends her several letters, Hope ignores them. She despises the family who disowned her father and wants nothing to do with them.

Lawyer Tyler Coleman's job is simply to obtain Hope's signature on a legal document. Getting it is harder than planned, though, when an unexpected attraction blossoms between them. If Ty is honest with Hope about why he's in Willow Springs, he'll fulfill his assignment but may risk hurting her.

The opportunity to have everything she's ever desired is at Hope's fingertips. Will her dream come true at the expense of Tyler's love?

Excerpt

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, and clasped his hands together.
“What if money wasn’t an option? No worries about having someone care for your mom. No worries about paying whatever bills you have. Would you go back to school then?”
She shook her head. “Unless I hit the lottery, which there is zero chance of doing since I don’t waste the money I do have buying tickets, I don’t see it happening.”
“But if it did,” he persisted. “What would you do?”
Laying her fork next to her plate again, she peered across at him. Why was he so insistent on an answer to a question she knew was pie in the sky, wishful thinking? Unless some long lost relative of her mother’s died and left her an inheritance—which she doubted was ever going to happen—there was no reason to consider the possibility of going back to school. It wasn’t feasible financially. And unfortunately, financially was the way Hope had to look at every decision she made.
“Look.” She gathered her thoughts so he’d be able to understand her. “I had a dream to be a nurse practitioner. And I’d have a made a good one. A darn good one. Dreams sometimes come true, but most times don’t, so you have to adjust, accept, and move on. I tookan absence from school to take care of my mother after the accident because there was no one else to do it. When the insurance ran out and the medical bills kept piling up and we had no way to pay them without losing our home, I dropped out to work. There aren’t many jobs around here that pay well, but I got lucky. My mother depends on me for everything, and I won’t let her down. If it means I spend the next twenty years teaching people how to ski, building draft beers for tourists during the winter, and waitressing until my feet scream in the off season”—she shrugged—“then so be it. It pays the bills, keeps us in our own home, and gives my mother peace of mind. Those are all positives in my book. She didn’t ask for this to happen. It was a tragic accident. The least I can do as her daughter is to make things easier for her.”
He’d been staring at her the entire time she spoke, his gorgeous and intense blue eyes drifting across her face, her lips, even her hands as she used them to accentuate a point. He’d been, for the most part, silent, nodding a few times to show he understood what she was saying.
“Your mother is lucky to have you for a daughter,” he said after a few beats. “I don’t know too many people who would give up their lives, or their dreams, to help someone else, be it a parent or a loved one. I see too many selfish, self-centered people every day, out for only themselves. You’re neither of those things. You have a very beautiful heart, Hope Kildaire.”
When he stretched out a hand across the table, wrapped his fingers around hers, and gave them a gentle squeeze, it took everything in her not to let go the emotion welling up from deep inside her. Good looking,  nice to her mother, and he could make her toes tingle with a simple brush of his hand on her skin. Not to mention he’d been worried about her safety when she’d left the bar last night. Hope couldn’t believe guys like him still existed in this day and age.
After he squeezed her hand again, he let it go. It instantly felt lonely. Hand? Heck, her entire body felt abandoned.
Buy Links


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. She also came in first place in the Contemporary Romance category of the  2018 OKRWA IDA Contest.

A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, she is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.


Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0
BookGorilla: https://www.bookgorilla.com/author/B00T8E5LN0/peggy-jaeger/kcc


Also in the Deerbourne Inn series... 


By Reservation Only by Barbara Edwards
Book 1

Freedom's Path by by Linda Carroll-Bradd 
Book 3


Lyrical Embrace by Amber Daulton
Book 4
(Available for Pre-Order)

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