Today I’m tickled to welcome back my writing friend Peggy Jaeger, who’s here to introduce her latest tale: Dirty Damsels. (Don’t you just love the title?) I’ve greatly enjoyed her books so far and am looking forward to this one!

Peggy is a contemporary romance writer who writes Romantic Comedies about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them. If she can make you cry on one page and bring you out of tears rolling with laughter the next, she’s done her job as a writer!

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, she 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’s created the families she wanted as that lonely child.

When she’s not writing Peggy is usually painting, crafting, scrapbooking or decoupaging old steamer trunks she finds at rummage stores and garage sales.

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

As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go “What??!”

When I first saw Cynderella all covered in soot in that sexy maid uniform, I knew I wanted to be her Prince.

She’s a small and savvy businesswoman who’s built her cleaning company from the ground up. But now that Dirty Damsels is booming, I’ve been hired to arrange a hostile takeover.

But the temptation of having her was too much to ignore… We ended up spending one night together—a night neither of will forget. Now, I want more. I need more. I want to spend every night, skin-on-skin, with my beautiful Ella.

Problem is, when she finds out who I really am, she’ll never forgive me.

Excerpt:

The bathroom door opened.

In his tailored suit he’d been impressive and striking. With a white bulky towel wrapped around his waist, and the humidity in the bathroom sluicing off his damp torso, he was downright magnificent. Those wide and solid shoulders tapered down into biceps I could tell regularly attended a gym with him, and then into forearms corded with strong sinew and veins.

 “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’m almost done. I’m sorry.” I blushed again and I cursed my fair skin. But really, how could I not blush and stutter when faced with this unbelievable specimen of hotness standing five feet away from me, all wet and hard muscled and gorgeous?

He moved like a panther across the rug, soundlessly stalking, as if playing with his prey, until he came to the opposite side of the bed.

He took one corner of the sheet in his hand and yanked it. “Do you have enough on your side?”

Speech was impossible because I knew I’d start blabbering again, so I nodded and tucked the sheet under the mattress.

“Hospital corners.” He nodded and then mimicked my motions. “I love a tight sheet.”

I couldn’t help but stare at the way his biceps swelled when he lifted the mattress as if it weighed nothing, and shot the sheet under it. Nor could I forgo glancing at the thick mat of black hair crisscrossing from one side of his pecs to the other and then down, disappearing below the towel. And I’d have to have been struck blind and stupid – which I’m neither – not to notice and admire the trim, tight waist and abdomen the towel was securely wrapped around.

At least I prayed it was securely wrapped.

I grabbed the comforter, shook it out and he helped me place it over the bed.

“Toss me one of those,” he commanded when I grabbed a pillow and began tugging the case on.

He caught both in midair.

The bed made, I turned to tell him about the platter of food, but stopped before the words could leave my throat. He’d moved without a sound again, coming to stand so close to me I could smell the citrus scent of the soap he’d used wafting off his body.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. I swear my body temperature went up ten degrees. I figured by now I resembled one of those cartoons where the character’s head turns beet red and then explodes upward.

“Thanks, Cinderella.” A devilish grin tripped across his tired face. “But I need to crash now, so…”

I truly could have stood there for the rest of the afternoon basking in his hotness, but I got the hint.

I nodded and made one last visual sweep of the room.

“Do you want me to close the blinds?” I asked, turning back just in time to see him drop the towel and slide – gloriously naked – into the freshly made bed.

Holy Mother of God. The man had a butt made for grabbing. Two perfect, round, and tight cheeks dipped from that narrow waist, leading downward to two thick and powerful thighs. Since his back was to me he didn’t notice my jaw hanging open  to my knees while he burrowed under the comforter.

“Mmm…sure. Thanks, Cinderella.”

Even half asleep his voice made my heart skip a few beats and my girlie parts go zing.

Doesn’t that sound delicious? I’ve already pre-ordered my copy. Get yours here:

Amazon: ( Exclusive to KU so free for those subscribers)

Kindle version: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TBBPHM8

Print Version: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1640348409

Peg, tell us about your inspiration for this story.

Dirty Damsels was one of those stories that came to me, fully fledged and grown, during a car ride one summer day.

Hubby and I had spent the weekend in New York and during the long drive home I was thinking about all the household things I had to do once we arrived back to New Hampshire. Grocery shopping for the week; laundry; cleaning the house. I was wishing I had someone to do it all for me and right then, the idea to write about a cleaning service popped into my head.

I’ve always loved the Cinderella fairy tale. I’ve watched the Leslie Ann Warren television musical made back in the ‘60s about 100 times over the years, and I wanted to write a modern day version of that tale. Since Cinderella was, at heart, a cleaning lady for her horrible stepmother, I figured, why not give her some new millennium growth and make her the CEO of an elite cleaning business? Dirty Damsels, the name of her business (and the title of the book!) blasted across my mind and I knew I was on to something.

Now, since this is a romance, I needed a hero. And not just any hero. To really modernize this story I couldn’t just have Cinderella be rescued by a handsome prince. She’s a kick ass businesswoman in the 21^st century, in charge of her own destiny, so that prince had to in some way pose a threat to her livelihood and happiness. When Dirty Damsels is targeted for a takeover by a corporate magnate, that threat becomes real and the conflict in the story evolves.

The tagline of DIRTY DAMSELS is: All is fair in business…and love.

That kinda says it all, dear readers, doesn’t it? Hee hee.

I hope you enjoy reading DIRTY DAMSELS as much as I did writing about Ella and Buddy’s journey.

~Peg

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