Monday Book Reviews: Two More Must-Read Christmas Stories!

A Kiss Under the Christmas Lights
By Peggy Jaeger
Published December 2016 by The Wild Rose Press

About the Book:

With Christmas just a few weeks away, Gia San Valentino, the baby in her large, loud, and loving Italian family, yearns for a life and home of her own with a husband and bambini she can love and spoil. The single scene doesn’t interest her, and the men her well-meaning family introduce her to aren’t exactly the happily-ever-after kind. 

Tim Santini believes he’s finally found the woman for him, but Gia will take some convincing she’s that girl. A misunderstanding has her thinking he’s something he’s not.
Can a kiss stolen under the Christmas lights persuade her to spend the rest of her life with him?

My Take:

I absolutely adore Peggy Jaeger's Valentine novella about Chloe San Valentino and her large, meddling Italian family, so when I found out there was a Christmas story about Chloe's younger sister Gia, I snatched up a Kindle version to sweeten my holiday season. (Read my review of 3 Wishes, a Candy Hearts novella HERE.)

Gia San Valentino is the baby of the family, a good Italian girl in her early twenties still living at home with her overprotective family. In the lead up to the holidays she's crazy busy with studying for her CPA exams while helping care for her elderly grandmother and helping out with her family's booth at the annual church Christmas festival.

Her well meaning family has set her up with numerous dates, but none of them make her heart stop like the new soon-to-be-ordained priest at her local church. She's more than convinced she's going to go to hell for having such carnal thoughts about a man of the cloth, and that's before he even kisses her. After? She can't think straight, let alone care. One kiss will never be enough.

This over-the-top New York Italian family makes for such fun reading, especially having grown up in Northern New Jersey with so many Soprano-like neighbors. Jaeger nails lots of the little details that make you both cringe and laugh out loud, and despite the fact that I figured out the story's "twist" well before Gia did, it only added to the fun to watch her emotional turmoil.

For a different sort of Christmas story that will definitely make you smile, grab a copy of this fun, fast read. You won't be disappointed! Grab it on AMAZON today.

Better to Give, by K.K.Weil
Published November 2016 by The Wild Rose Press

About the Book:

For most people, the holidays are a time of warmth, happiness and celebration. But to Jenna Samuels, they mean only one thing. Mounting debt. A single mother, Jenna struggles to make ends meet and to her, it’s a season of excess and distress.

James Garrison is in over his head, too. His ex-wife said he wasn’t equipped to take care of his twins, and now that he’s got joint custody, he fears she was right. They’re wild, spoiled, and always fighting. When they knock Jenna’s daughter into the “Gifting Tree,”—a part of their town’s charity collection—the parents are immediately attracted to each other. But James has had his fill of cold women and Jenna won’t make the mistake of falling for another man who disappears when life gets too heavy.

As their paths cross, James and Jenna must decide whether first impressions are accurate, or if sometimes, people are not what you assume at all.

My Take:

After reading and reviewing several older Christmas romances, I thought I'd buy a few brand new ones. This was my first purchase and I was not disappointed.

Told all in first person POV, the chapters alternate between the two main characters. Where some he said/she said narratives give us the same scenes in different views, the author here does a great job of showing us how both characters feel during each scene, keeping the plot moving along quickly through the month of December as the holidays heat up.

Jenna is a single mom of one little girl, with a baby-daddy who left before Nora was born and parents who disowned her for choosing to drop out of college at 19 and keep the baby. She's been going it alone for so long she's not quite sure how to let someone else in, using a wall of sarcasm to keep men away.

James is a recently divorced dad of rambunctious twins. He had to sue his bitter ex-wife for a formal joint custody arrangement in order to spend time with his kids. He doesn't want to waste his few nights a week laying down the law and as a result they act like brats. When a stranger (Jenna) calls him on it, his eyes open to the possibility that he's approaching his parenting responsibilities the wrong way. He also opens to the possibility that not all women are bitter manipulators like his ex.

An innocent dinner with all their kids leads to sparks, and things progress quickly. This is a fast, fun read (albeit too short) where both characters learn and grow as they fall in love. The HEA on Christmas night ties a bow on this sweet holiday story and left a lingering smile on my face.

Grab your copy and your holiday smile for only $2.99 on AMAZON.

Candy Hearts Romance review: 3 WISHES by Peggy Jaeger

About the book:

Valentine’s Day is chocolatier Chloe San Valentino’s favorite day of the year. Not only is it the busiest day in her candy shop, Caramelle de Chloe, but it’s also her birthday. Chloe’s got a birthday wish list for the perfect man she pulls out every year: he’d fall in love with her in a heartbeat, he’d be someone who cares about people, and he’d have one blue eye and one green eye, just like her. So far, Chloe’s fantasy man hasn’t materialized, despite the matchmaking efforts of her big, close-knit Italian family. But this year for her big 3-0 birthday, she just might get her three wishes.

Excerpt:

At about five minutes of ten I was almost ready to turn the Closed sign on the door when it opened. I heard Janie’s breath hitch and turned from where I was sweeping up. Staying open late is always a risk, with the thought thieves will invade at the end of the day.

           

If the guy standing at the door glancing around the shop was a thief, then Dio mio, I wanted to be robbed.

About six foot, his hair was the color of a deer’s pelt, with autumnal golds and browns shot together in a glorious patchwork that grazed the collar of his jacket and curled a little at the ends. He wore a faded brown bomber jacket over a shirt I couldn’t see, but he had shoulders almost as wide as my doorway. A pair of well-worn jeans covered his mile long legs, and the fabric on the stress points at his knees was practically white.

“We’re about to close,” I heard myself say. “Can I help you?”

It was at that moment he looked over at me.

His face could have been sculpted by Da Vinci or Michelangelo. A broad, smooth, forehead housed naturally arched eyebrows I knew some of my gay guy friends would have paid a fortune to have on their own faces. His cheeks were carved from marble, high, smooth and deep. And his mouth, mother-of-God, his mouth. Full, thick beautiful lips sat perfectly over a chin with a dent you could shove a button into and have it stay put.

"Sorry,” he said, those fabulous lips pulling up a little shyly at the corners. “I got stuck at work and couldn’t get here until now. I’ll be quick. Promise.”

So here’s the thing: the guy was gorgeous. But even if he’d looked like a frog with raw antipasto smothering his face, I would have dropped to my knees when he opened his mouth. Warm honey, a shot of raw whiskey, and a little hot puff of smoke wafted from his mouth like a fine and rare brandy being decanted.

 
My Take:

This sweet, sweet romance is one of my favorite Candy Hearts stories, telling a compelling tale of how dreams really do come true.

Told in first person, this contemporary romance refers to the Aladdin story of the genie and his 3 wishes, main character Chloe San Valentino's favorite fairy tale when she was a kid. Chloe's all grown up now and owns a chocolate shop in town where she handcrafts all sorts of sweet confections, making other people's sweet dreams come true.

Her own wishes involve the man of her dreams, and have a rather specific set of qualifications: he should be a healer, he should have mismatched eyes like her own, and he would fall in love with her at first sight. The list sounded great in grammar school, but now that she's pushing 30 it sounds like a recipe for spinsterhood. Until she meets Matteo D'Amour, who fits the description to a tee. With a full cast of Italian characters straight out of a movie or the set of the Sopranos (without the goodfellas) this is a wonderful, compelling, fast paced tale that will put a smile on your face and a yearning in your heart. I'm giving it 5 candy hearts, but really with I could give it more.

About the Author:

Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance author who writes about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can't live without them. 

Her current titles, available now, include SKATER'S WALTZ and THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, and FIRST IMPRESSIONS books 1 through 3 in her 6-book The MacQuire Women Series, published by The Wild Rose Press.

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.