3 Wishes by Peggy Jaeger ♥ Book Tour & GIVEAWAY ♥ (Contemporary Romance)

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.

Did you know that chocolate has been referred to as “the food of the gods” since the time of Montezuma? Or that Christopher Columbus enjoyed the chocolate he discovered in the Americas so much he brought it back to Queen Isabella of Spain and introduced it to the Spanish Court? The aristocracy was so enamored with the taste of the treat and its aphrodisiac properties, it quickly became the next big thing in Europe.
In 1861, English candy maker Richard Cadbury created the first ever heart-shaped box for Valentine’s Day, beginning the association of Valentines heart boxes with chocolate candy.
Like most people (and all women!) I love chocolate. From the taste, to the consistency, to the way it gives me a rush of pleasure when it meets my taste buds. As I was writing 3 WISHES I wanted to know more about this addictive little piece of heaven, since I made my heroine a chocolatier and knew she would need to be up on all things chocolate-related.
This is just a taste (!) of what I learned:
Scientists have discovered a link with the chemical phenylethylamine found in chocolate to human feelings of excitement, attraction and physical pleasure. (I could have told them all that without the cost of the research involved!) The “high” you experience when you eat a piece of chocolate comes from a little rush of endorphins, the pleasure receptors in your brain.
According to HolidayInsights.com, women buy 75% of most of the chocolate sold during the year while men make 75% of the purchases on Valentine’s Day. Second to jewelry, chocolate is the most given present on February 14.

My heroine, Chloe San Valentino, is a chocolatier. The true definition of this craft is: a person who makes confectionaries from chocolate. Chocolatiers are different from chocolate makers, who make their creations using cacao beans mixed with other ingredients. Who knew? Chloe is a slave to her confections and her shop is very successful year round, not just on the day of love. She fell in love with chocolate making when she was six years old and has devoted her life to creating new and exquisite tastes and confections.

To be a chocolatier, one must master the art of working with chocolate to not only make mouth watering desserts, but be able to craft pieces of art-for-eating with it as well. Chloe has a specialty business where she caters her desserts for wedding engagements, baby showers, etc and her chocolate art pieces have been highlighted in several prestigious food magazines.

I will tell you this and not be embarrassed in the least at admitting it: I wrote 3 WISHES in 2 weeks and gained five pounds. Why? Research. And by research, I mean I ate every kind of chocolate I could get my hands on, trying to learn about them all so Chloe’s “voice” when she spoke of it would sound true-to-life and expert.

Devoted to my job, much?

Happy Valentine’s day!

The man had been a hunk-a-doodle when he’d been in my shop. Right now he looked like sex on a candy stick. Tall, lithe, wide shouldered and narrow hipped in his scrubs. He was every fantasy I’d ever had about what my man would look like. He stood in the doorway of the waiting room and stared at me.

And I stared right back.

“I assume she’s your mother,” he said, hooking his thumb in the general direction behind him.

I nodded.

He grinned and my toes curled up at the tips.

“She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

I winced and replied, “She means well.”

Even to my ears it sounded more like a weak question than a declaration.

His grin spread and I swear my girlie parts quivered.

Quivered.

When he came toward me, eating up the floor with his long stride, a hot bead of awareness burst from somewhere deep, deep down inside me.

♥ To be released February 8 ♥

     

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

     

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