Let’s look at the future! These two authors have some exciting wedding themed books coming out in just a few months that you’ll want to add to your TBR lists from now. And in the meantime, you have a couple of series to read through to get you ready for their new books to come out.
Welcome to Nicole McLaughlin and Kieran Kramer to UTC today!
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Kieran Kramer interviews Nicole McLaughlin
What is your favorite thing about writing series/book with a wedding theme?
Nicole McLaughlin: I love weddings and I’m a photographer in addition to writing so I spent many years photographing weddings. (Not so much now that I write.) Mashing the two was a no-brainer and was fun because I’ve experienced weddings from an entirely different perspective: the vendor side, which is the angle I approach in my series. The photographer is usually there all day from getting ready to the couples exit, so you get this strangely intimate look into a families life for one day. It’s made for great book research!
Kieran Kramer: I totally agree, Nicole! The best part for me is exploring what goes on behind the scenes. It’s the couple’s Perfect Day, but getting there is a long journey often filled with unexpected obstacles and hilarious side trips!
What would you say sets your series/book apart from the other wedding theme series/books out there?
NM: I hope that my insider knowledge of the vendor side of weddings adds a little something different. The relationships that develop between the people that make weddings happen is really what I like to explore. It’s interesting to be the people on the fringe of someone else’s life changing experience.
KK: My books have a ton of humor in them. I love including one or two eccentric characters who’ll make the reader smile, and the hero and heroine love to have spirited conversations. I’m also all about celebrating girl power and community and the power of love to change everything. So working with three matchmakers who have built a thriving business together and are also best friends was something that really appealed to me.
What is the craziest thing that has happened at a wedding you attended?
NM: I was once photographing a couples first look in the church sanctuary and fell off the dais steps right onto my butt. It made for a super romantic moment for them! Ha! I also love a good groom/groomsmen choreographed number at the reception. It happens, friends, and it is always an awkward but amazing treat. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen, Kieran?
KK: The craziest thing? I have a doozie. A dear friend’s wedding at a military chapel was almost called off fifteen minutes before the ceremony because one of his groomsmen brought a beer into the dressing area to celebrate the upcoming nuptials. The sergeant assigned to overseeing all weddings at the chapel saw the beer and told the groom that the wedding could no longer take place because the beer on site was against the rules. With time ticking down to mere minutes before the wedding, a compromise was reached: if the groomsman who brought the beer would leave the chapel before the wedding, the ceremony could take place. So my friend lost a groomsman, but thank goodness the wedding continued!
The many family and friends in the pews had no idea that any of this was going on. This was the Before Texting era. So when the groom came out to stand and wait for his bride at the altar with one of his groomsmen missing, everyone wondered what had happened. But there was no time for explanations. We had to wait until after the wedding ceremony to find out the story! Everyone was shocked at realizing how close we had come to having no wedding take place.
What was your wedding like?
KK: I had a beautiful morning wedding in a traditional gown at an historic church in Charleston. Afterward, we all drove almost an hour away to Wadmalaw Island, to a tiny village called Rockville, to have our reception at the Sea Island Yacht Club, a breezy old building with tons of porches on a saltwater tidal creek (as wide as a river) that led to the Atlantic Ocean around the corner. It was your perfect Lowcountry reception hall and location. My husband and I left by motorboat to head up Bohicket Creek to my parents’ house for another party. I remember holding a beer in my hand and my veil streaming out behind me and waving at a bunch of people at Bohicket Marina as we went past. What was your experience as a bride like, Nicole?
NM: Real life – my Mom was a single mother and my then fiancé and I had already been blessed with our oldest son. So, our priority was to keep costs down. That forced my mother and I to get creative and do a lot of work, but I felt like we managed to create such a beautiful day in spite of our limitations. I was just so happy to marry my best friend and be surrounded by the most important people. Dancing with our one year old son at the reception was the highlight!
Did you have any visual inspiration while “planning” the weddings in this book?
KK: Totally! As I wrote, I saw Charleston on every page. I’m in love with its cobblestone alleys, the gardens, the wrought iron gates, the stately homes with the big porches, the window boxes, and beautiful front doors. I’m also a huge fan of our popular haunts, like the Harris Teeter grocery store on East Bay Street—where everyone catches up on the latest gossip—as well as the waterfront park facing Fort Sumter and the Atlantic, and of course, the restaurants. All the ones I mention in this series are my favorite hangouts.
NM: Honestly, not much. I’ve got a lot of material saved up in my brain from past weddings so writing these scenes was so easy. Almost too easy. I frequently had to remind myself to just stick to the important stuff. However, I imagine The Stag, which is the old warehouse building/event venue my series is set around, looking a little something like this…
She’s never had a no-strings fling. He’s never had anything else. But maybe this time will be an exception?
After a year of mourning her fiancé, Alexis Parker has worked hard to rediscover what she wants out of life. Fresh out of the military and back stateside, her brother offers her a marketing job at the Stag Distillery. Ready for a new challenge, Alexis agrees to accompany her new co-worker Jake Cooper on a Stag cross-country promotional tour. He may have an infamous playboy reputation, but Alexis is surprised to find out that there is more to him than meets the eye. And she likes what she sees. . .
Jake promised Alexis’s brother that he’d be an absolute gentleman. Of course, that was before he and Alexis hit the road, and they both agree that what Alexis’s big brother doesn’t know won’t hurt him. The plan: to keep their fling confined to the RV, and everything will go back to normal once they head home. Things progress in ways neither of them could have imagined, and Jake realizes that he and Alexis make a perfect mix. Can he convince her that he’s ready to shake things up and give true love a shot in Maybe for You?
Nicole McLaughlin wrote her first full length book (6 pages) about the birth of her baby sister, when she was eight years old. She only finished it because her mother bribed her with a Rick Astley cassette tape. Sad, but true. Now her characters are what keep her writing and her subject matter has gotten a little bit deeper and a lot more romantic. She resides in a small town outside of Kansas City with her husband and three sons. When she isn’t writing, she’s a wedding and portrait photographer, loves to cook, and watch historical dramas or documentaries. She is the author of the Man Enough novel All I Ask and the Whiskey and Wedding series.
From USA Today bestselling author Kieran Kramer, comes Second Chance at Two Love Lane, a fast-paced tale about the intoxicating effects of fame and what happens when a past romance is rekindled behind the silver screen.
Sometimes love is waiting in the second act…
In her professional career, Ella Mancini plays matchmaker at Two Love Lane but, in her personal life, she takes the stage at the Dock Street Theatre. Now she has a chance at a new role in a Hollywood movie that happens to be filming in Charleston—one that features a big-name actress, Samantha Drake. Long ago, Ella passed up a major audition while awaiting a marriage proposal. Not only didn’t she get the role; she never got the ring, either. Instead, her boyfriend Hank went on to become a huge film star…leaving her, and all her dreams, behind.
But now Hank’s back in Charleston, cast as the male lead in the same movie Ella’s in. In spite of the dramatic tension off-screen, he and Ella try to stay cool onset. But when their old feelings start to heat up—at the same time leading-lady Samantha tries to play cupid—all bets are off. How can Hank convince Ella, after all this time, that she’s the one he really wants to be with in real life—and that some happy, rom-com endings really can come true?
Kieran Kramer is a USA Today bestselling author and former journalist and English teacher who lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with her family. She’s a game show veteran, karaoke enthusiast, and general adventurer.
Kieran is the author of the House of Brady novels, including Say Yes to the Duke and The Earl is Mine, and the Two Love Lane series, including Christmas at Two Love Lane, A Wedding at Two Love Lane, and Second Chance at Two Love Lane.
Read more
- Something Borrowed, Something Blue: More in our wedding themed event
- Books by Kieran Kramer
- Books by Nicole McLaughlin
- Books with a wedding theme
