Marry Me

 

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She'd vowed never to fall in love... Julia Richardson is no fan of weddings. A lifetime of watching her parents treat relationships like the flavor of the month has taught her that love is for fools. Then she learns her former stepsister is having a crisis with her pregnancy. The crisis has Julia returning to the small Southern town – and the family – she’s been avoiding for years. Before she knows it, Julia’s been pressed into service running her former stepsister’s wedding planning business, Marry Me. Julia doesn’t know a garter from a garden hose, but now she must navigate couples along the bumpy path down the aisle - despite wardrobe malfunctions, killer bees, and plenty of near disasters. In the midst of it all, Julia makes the most unexpected discovery of all…Love, with Seth Graham, the widowed local minister! Julia’s been running from love and everything spiritual for most of her life. It’s not until she finds the courage to stop running that she finds her own “I Do” moment.

The Story of Marry Me

I write contemporary, inspirational and general market women’s fiction.  I will confess that never thought I’d write an Inspirational romance. I had (a perhaps unfair) impression of Christian romance as overly sappy or preachy. The covers always featured some girl who looked like an extra from Little House on the Prairie. That just wasn’t the kind of book I wrote or read. My books had snark and humor and sassy heroines.

Then came this idea for a book. At first all I knew about the story was that my heroine would be a woman who never wanted to get married – and who in fact hated weddings – who wound up having to run a wedding planning business. Don’t ask me where the idea came from. I don’t have an unnatural loathing of weddings. I simply thought the idea was funny.

Armed with this funny idea, I then spent a long time trying to figure out “…the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say. I had to ask myself a lot of questions…

Who is this woman?

Why is she so cynical about marriage and why does she hate weddings?

Why is she running this wedding planning business?

What would compel her to do it?

And the big question…who could be the love interest?

I went through many possibilities. It would have to be someone she’d run into a lot while she was planning these weddings. Then one day I stumbled upon the answer…a minister!

Then an amazing thing happened. The story practically came together in an instant like Athena jumping out of Zeus’ head dressed in full body armor. Suddenly, I knew exactly who my heroine was, I knew her past, why she would take on the business, I knew his past, too. Along with the plot came an entire fictional Southern town called Covington Falls.

And with the idea to have the hero be a minister, I realized the story could have a faith element as well. I could write an inspirational romance that was funny and sweet and snarky, but still had a positive, faith message. I could write an inspirational story I would want to read and that hopefully others would, too…even if they weren’t religious.

I wrote MARRY ME (formally called Here Comes The Wedding Planner). Rewrote it a couple of times, taking it from a first person point-of-view book to third person (that’s a whole other story, too). It finaled in the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Contest in 2010. My agent sent it out to publishers…and it didn’t sell.

MARRY ME sat in my computer until this year when I decided to try again. You, see in the last couple years the entire publishing industry had undergone a seismic shift. The rise of ebook publishers, Amazon & self-publishing changed everything. Then in April I pitched the book to two editors on a website called Savvy Authors. I got two requests for full manuscripts…and two offers!!! Yes, that’s right…TWO!!! Within a week! I accepted the offer from Astraea Press.

I have a special place in my heart for this book because it helped me figure out the kind of writer I wanted to be. And I am so completely smitten by my hero and heroine, Julia and Seth (especially Seth because frankly I believe he wrote the book so I blame it all on him). And I’m so glad everyone will be able to FINALLY read their story.

Growing up Kristin devoured books like bags of Dove Dark Chocolate. Everything from Nancy Drew & Encyclopedia Brown to C.S. Lewis and the Sweet Valley High series. Later she discovered romance novels. It’s no surprise then that Kristin would one day try her hand at writing them. She writes inspirational romance and women’s fiction filled with love, laughter and a leap of faith. In May 2013, Kristin sold her first novel, MARRY ME, to Astraea Press. Publication date to come! When she’s not writing her next novel, Kristin works as an advertising copywriter. She also enjoys singing in her church choir and playing flute in a community orchestra.
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