In my town on spring, summer and autumn weekends, when I’m walking along the waterfront, I often see a bride with her newly-minted groom having their photos taken, and I always stop for a longer look. There’s something about a bride that makes me smile.

Maybe it’s the thrill of two people starting out life together and the hope I have for them. Perhaps it’s because they (usually) look so very happy or maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for a bridal gown. I love bridal dresses and you know, I don’t think I’m alone in that. Remember the ‘Friends’ episode where they all cheered themselves up by wearing a wedding dress around the house and eating icecream, including a heavily pregnant Phoebe?

When I was a kid, I would haul out my mother’s wedding album on wet and rainy afternoons and gaze at the black and white photos. Then I’d go find her dress. I so wanted to wear that dress when I got married, but my aunt who is shorter than me had also worn it and had heaps cut off the hem. I was too tall for the dress (sob!).

Given the buzz I get whenever I see a bride, I suppose it isn’t any wonder that when I wanted to try my hand at writing a different kind of book from my Harlequin Medical Romances, an idea featuring a bride popped into my head.  Only it wasn’t the picture of a beautiful bride posing for photos, it was a modern bride dressed in a sixty-year-old wedding dress, holding a cake and staring into a vacant shop window in small town USA.

And so the story of Boomerang Bride evolved, pushed along by a song about an Australian World War Two bride who ‘married her Yankee sailor’ and sealed by my love and affection for Wisconsin, and the wonderful people of that state.

Why is the book called Boomerang Bride? Because much to Marc Olsen’s dismay, Matilda Geoffrey, the woman he meets standing on a street corner holding a wedding cake and looking like a cross between Miss Havisham and the bride from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, just keeps coming back.  Every time he thinks he’s free of her, she turns up again, and much to his chagrin he feels honor-bound to help her. Only she doesn’t want his help at all, and he isn’t totally certain why he feels so compelled to get involved in her chaotic life when he’s got enough on his plate with his sick sister and a moody teenage nephew.

I had so much fun writing this book and then I started looking for a home for it. Carina Press had just published its debut books so I bought one of their contemporary romances— Unexpectedly Yours— by an author I’d never heard of called Shannon Stacey. I loved the book and immediately knew that Carina Press was the perfect place for Boomerang Bride. Fortunately for me, Carina Press agreed!  I’ve been blown away by the entire experience starting with the support of my wonderful editor, Charlotte Herscher, the professionalism and support of the company, and the enthusiasm of my fellow Carina authors.

So it’s time to celebrate now that Boomerang Bride is on sale at Carina Press and that lends itself to a contest! I have two fabulous boomerang magnets decorated with Aboriginal dot paintings to give away, along with signed postcards of the cover of Boomerang Bride and a BB magnet too. So to enter, read the excerpt on my website and then leave a comment here telling me something about Matilda or Marc and something memorable about a wedding you’ve attended. Remember to call back on August 12th to see if you’re one of the two lucky winners.  Thanks for helping me launch Boomerang Bride!

Fiona Lowe is an award-winning, multi-published author of romance fiction with Harlequin Mills & Boon and Carina Press.  Whether her books are set in outback Australia or the USA, they all feature small towns with big hearts, and warm, likeable characters that make you fall in love.  When she’s not writing stories, she’s a weekend wife, a mother of two boys and she’s trying really hard to instill in them heroic characteristics like cooking and ironing.  She’s an avid reader, a guardian of 80 rose bushes, attempts to stay fit and is often seen collapsed on the couch with a glass of wine.  A previous Romantic Book of the Year finalist, Fiona is currently writing her 18^th novel and says, ‘it doesn’t get any easier.’  You can find her at her website, her blog, confused on Twitter and a bit more together on Facebook . She loves hearing from her readers.