Today we have a fabulous author who writes contemporary romance with very real and complex characters. Nancy Fraser is sharing her newest release, RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY BRIDE, the perfect book for a sunny day at the beach, or a rainy afternoon. She's given us a real treat -- TWO excerpts and a trailer and a jigsaw puzzle! Let's enjoy!

Will coming home be a mistake or a new beginning for both of them?

​

​Last Chance Beach Wedding Chapel
Five Years Earlier
 
Chase Michaels stood at the front of the non-denominational chapel, in muted conversation with the justice of the peace. He turned slowly, surveying the half-dozen guests who’d been invited to the wedding rehearsal.
 
The only persons missing were his best friend Jared, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett and Emily, his bride-to-be.
 
Carly and Becca, Emily’s bridesmaids, hovered nearby.
 
“I’ve heard of a bride being late for the wedding before,” Carly whispered, “but the rehearsal?”
 
“You know Emily,” Becca responded, shaking her head in teasing resignation. “She does like to make an entrance.”
 
When the back door of the chapel opened, everyone raised their gazes in anticipation. Rather than the blushing bride, it was Jared Wilson, Chase’s best man, who entered the sanctuary and made his way down the narrow aisle.
 
Stopping just short of the flower-covered altar, he pulled Chase aside.
 
“She’s gone,” Jared said, his words falling like a lead brick on Chase ’s ears.
 
“What do you mean ‘gone’? Gone where?”
 
“Mrs. Bennett said Emily packed her suitcase, gassed up her car, and left. She’s on her way to Boston for a job interview.” Jared stuck his hand in the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a velvet pouch. “She left this for you.”
 
Chase didn’t need to look to know what was in the bag. After all, he’d been the one to give the modest ring to Emily in the first place. Drawing a deep breath, he spun around and faced his friends and family.
 
“Thank you all for being here for the wedding rehearsal.” Blinking back the threat of tears, he met his mother’s worried gaze. “However, there will be no need to practice. The wedding’s been called off.”
 
“Called off?” Carly asked. She and Becca exchanged glances and then closed the distance between themselves and where he stood. “If Emily’s got cold feet, we’ll straighten her out.”
 
Chase gave a quick shake of his head and bit back the string of curses welling up from within. “Emily’s gone. She sent back the ring and, as we speak, she’s on her way to Boston, eager it seems to put both me and Last Chance Beach in her rearview mirror.”
 
One-by-one, the guests slowly filtered out of the chapel, Carly and Becca giving Chase a hug of support. His mom wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed, nearly drawing the tears he was fighting so hard to contain. Within minutes, he was left standing at the altar alone, but for the best friend he’d known since kindergarten.
 
“Are you okay, Chase?” Jared asked.
 
“No, but I will be. Just not anytime soon.”

Pick-a-Read Bookstore, Boston, MA
Present Day
 
Emily Bennett took a seat behind the cloth-covered table and waited for her publicist and good friend Mary to give her standard introduction. No matter how many of these events she’d done, to Emily they were never routine. Nervously, she adjusted and readjusted the angle of the ink pens and candy dish and fanned the bookmarks and other swag out across the tabletop.
 
Mary tapped the microphone, waited for the echo to stop, and then began, “Thank you all for coming to today’s book promotion event. Author E.M. Stephens will be here for the next two-and-a-half hours, and happy to sign copies of her New York Times bestseller, Love in the Surf, as well as early copies of her newest release, A Bad Boy for Willa.” Mary paused, then added, “For those who haven’t yet heard, Love in the Surf has been optioned for a movie and will begin filming within the next month.” Beaming proudly, Mary turned in her direction. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the romantically gifted, E.M. Stephens.”
 
The queue of fans bent around the front of the bookstore and out into the mall, with tables set up inside the entryway and books stacked in piles of twelve. One-by-one, the towers of both books diminished quickly.
 
Two hours in, less than a dozen people remained in line. Emily’s hand was beginning to cramp, but she forced a renewed smile to her lips and raised her gaze to the young man who stood in front of her.
 
“Is there a name for an inscription?”
 
“Eileen, please.” He flashed her a smile. “It’s for my mom. She’s a big fan.”
 
Emily wrote a short note and signed her name. “Tell your mother ‘thank you’ for me.”
 
“I will,” he assured her before moving on.
 
Emily repeated the smile and sign process over and over again until—finally—the line was gone.
 
Mary gathered up the remaining bookmarks, empty candy dish, and a half dozen pens before leading the way to the back of the bookstore and into a small private room. The moment the door closed behind them, Emily released a long sigh and reached for the mid-length blonde wig that had been driving her crazy for the past hour, releasing her long brown hair to hang freely across her shoulders.
 
A quick change out of her bright red blouse, tight black leggings, and fancy rhinestone hoop earrings, and back into her faded jeans and vintage T-shirt had her feeling more like Emily, and less like her alter ego, E.M. Stephens.
 
“I don’t know about you, sweetie,” Mary said, a long sigh escaping, “But I could use a greasy burger, with an onion ring and frosty beer chaser. Why don’t we get out of here and go someplace dark and inconspicuous and kick back for a while?”
 
“As much as the idea appeals to me, I’ve got to finish packing and then load the car. I’m hoping to be on the road by six in the morning, if possible.”
 
“I don’t understand why you’re driving all the way to Last Chance Beach. Why not fly into the closest airport and rent a car?”
 
She gave a quick shake of her head. “I’ve got too much stuff to drag with me. Besides, the drive will give me two days and a night to get my story straight and figure out how to explain everything to my parents.”
 
“I still can’t believe you never told your parents about your books. With all the success you’ve had, you’d think bragging rights alone would have prompted the discussion.”
 
“I grew up on Last Chance Beach before it became a tourist magnet. I went to high school on the mainland where they still do farmer’s markets and county fairs. It was bad enough I left under less than stellar circumstances. I’ve never been ready to explain why I gave up on a career as a serious journalist to write romance novels.”
 
Mary’s grin was followed by a very unladylike snort. “For the money, sweetie. The glitz, the glamor and the chance for a huge movie deal.”
 
Emily flexed her sore hand. Opening the door, she stepped back out into the store, totally unrecognizable to her adoring fans. “Glitz and glamor? Not according to my impending carpal tunnel.”

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NANCY FRASER--Jumping Across Romance Genres with Gleeful Abandon--is an Amazon Top 100 and Award-Winning author who can’t seem to decide which romance genre suits her best. So, she writes them all.
 
Nancy has published over forty books in full-length, novella, and short format. When not writing (which is almost never), Nancy dotes on her five wonderful grandchildren and looks forward to traveling and reading when time permits. Nancy lives in Atlantic Canada where she enjoys the relaxed pace and colorful people.
 
 
Website: www.nancyfraser.ca
Blog: https://notesfromaromanticsheart.blogspot.com/
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As stated earlier, we spent two weeks every summer in a hot, dusty farm town close to the Rio Grande with my mother's parents. The first week without our mother; the second week with.

Grandmother rose at 5:00 a.m. to read the paper and eat poached eggs. Granddad rose a little after that and went to the store he ran with my great uncle. It was your average American drug store complete with soda fountain and counter top seating.

Grandmother was a retired school teacher. She taught English to middle school students for thirty years. Words, books, and the structure of sentences were her hobbies. The gift she wanted from the district to commemorate her retirement was an Oxford English Dictionary. The book was huge. You could tone your arm muscles with it. (But don't let Grandmother catch you at that.)
​
To continue:

Grandmother rose at 5:00 a.m. and read the paper from beginning to end. She kept a red pencil at her side and carefully edited their mistakes. Then she'd put the corrected paper in the mail and send it to the newspaper office -- "The Valley Morning Star". She entitled it, "The Valley Morning Disappointment".

We rose at 7:00 and went for our Cheerios. She kept the cereal in the largest circular Tupperware I've ever seen. We scooped them out with this little cup, then shook liquid saccharine on top to give our breakfast sweetness.

Grandmother had diabetes. No sugar in her house -- except for emergencies.

We sat at the table, swinging our legs and eating our Cheerios while she patiently underlined misspelled words in her reading material. Her eyebrows were always raised, her glasses always perched on her nose. She wore her satin robe and gown, sipped her coffee, and shook her head at supposedly qualified writers.

If she were reading this, I wonder how many mistakes she would find.

I'm so excited, and so...immensely humbled...that I get to share The Inventor's Heart with y'all. 

My heroine, Julia Forrester, is dyslexic. Now, the book takes place in 1885, so they didn't call it that back then. A doctor in Germany termed it "word blindness". 

I'm a special education teacher, and Julia's story is very dear to my heart. Her feelings of uselessness, of embarrassment, etc., are what my students battle every day. I shed tears while writing this book, let me tell you.
As luck would have it, sweet Julia is in love with the town genius, Alex Davis. But when she realizes he loves her in return, she gets scared. She feels her academic weaknesses would be a burden to him and rejects his proposal. Which causes Alex to take on the fight of his life, proving to Julia that she is, in fact, quite brilliant.

This was the book I was writing when my publisher went out of business a year ago.

You can imagine the sadness I felt, as Alex and Julia's story is VERY important to me. I wanted this one in the hands of readers so badly. But now, I didn't know what to do...

I wondered if I should keep writing.

I agonized over it, because I wasn't sure if I could publish a book on my own. And, quite frankly, I wasn't sure if I was even doing the right thing. Writing takes time. As does publishing. Then marketing...well...that job never stops. I also had my day job to contend with, which can be pretty demanding. And writing takes time away from my family.

So, I wondered if it was all worth it.

And then, about one month after my publisher went out of business, something happened...

My fabulous editor sent me the following message:
"I wanted to thank you. I've struggled with reading all my life and your book got me to thinking about color again. I discovered I can actually change the color of the page in Word. I finally figured out a way to make editing easier for me. But it helps with my writing, as well. I actually look forward to writing now!"

My joy was immense, let me tell you. I mean, I have tears now reading this. Goodness! So...her message sealed it for me. I was going to figure out how to self-publish come Hell or high water.

So.....if I don't stop, I'll just keep going and I think I've said enough. Without further ado.....

THE INVENTOR'S HEART

Pike’s Run, Texas, 1885
Alex Davis has just returned to Pike's Run, Texas, from Yale with a fabulous invention that could revolutionize the use of electricity. He can't wait to show his work to his family and his dearest friend in the world, Julia Forrester. But from the first day he arrives home, Julia avoids him. He doesn't understand and tries everything he can think of to spend time with her, but he fails.

Julia Forrester has loved Alex Davis since their school days. He was her confidante and her champion whenever she struggled with her studies. She helped him with his inventions, spending as many of her free hours as possible with him. She'd thought he'd loved her, but when he went off to college without her, her heart broke. And the infrequency of his letters proved his feelings didn't match hers. Now that he has returned, she is determined to move on with her life. She has written a symphony, and she won't let past hopes and dreams overtake her again.

But Alex won't give up, and when Julia confesses the reason for her distant attitude, the "Genius of Pike's Run" realizes his stupidity. He is in love with Julia and will now move Heaven and Earth to have her. But he is battling more than her distrust. Julia has another reason to keep away from Alex, and he sets out to fix it. Will the "genius" be able to prove his theory?

THE INVENTOR'S HEART: AN EXCERPT

“You don’t want to stay here with me? Why?” Alex tried to calm his rising anger, but hurt at her obvious want to escape him overruled his will. “You prefer to be caught under the mistletoe and kissed by every fellow in town?”

Julia reared back. “I want no such thing!” she declared, trying to tug her hand free of his.

He would not let go. “Could’ve fooled me. Fitzsimmons practically had you off your feet. And Hollister is married and lingered entirely too long when he grabbed you.”

With force, she tried to yank free, but he was having none of it.

“It’s just a game,” she argued with a scowl. “I didn’t plan it, and I can’t control how any of the men kiss me.” She lifted her chin. “Besides, it’s all in good fun.”

Fun? Every embrace had torn him inside out. “None of them should have touched you. You’re my friend.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, her voice rising. “I belong to you?”

He almost shouted the affirmative, but he controlled the overwhelming feeling of possession. Instead, he kept quiet, not knowing how to explain his statement.

“You’ve been gone for five years, and I have other friends. Am I supposed to sit on a shelf waiting for you to come home?” She glared up at him.

Was she considering stepping out with someone? Jealousy roared inside him. “You think another man is better for you than me?”

“Emmet might have swept me off my feet, but at least he paid attention to me, at least he seemed to be interested in me, at least—”

Unable to take her compliments of another man a second longer, he yanked her forward and slammed his lips on hers. As desire engulfed him, he plundered her mouth, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her up against him.

She moaned, and the sound spurred him on. He shoved his tongue inside, demanding she open for him, needing to prove that he was the man she wanted. He turned her and shoved her up against the wall, and she let out a whimper as she ran her fingers through his hair.

​A shudder went through him, and he drank from her, never wanting to let her go. How had he not understood that her arms were his safe place? Why hadn’t he ever realized his best friend could set him on fire? His heart pounded hard, echoing in his ears and making him sing with life.

Learning to swim must be very important. Learning to swim from Mrs. Rife must be extra special important.

My mother sent us all the way to her hometown for swimming lessons. My mother's childhood home, known affectionately by my god sister as "the armpit of the south", is thirty minutes from the border. It takes eight hours to get there. (5 if I am driving.)


​
You have to drive across King Ranch and you better have at least a half of tank of gas before you do.

So, I was under the impression that Mrs. Rife must be some kind of teacher.

We spent two weeks every summer with my granddad and grandmother. Part of our itinerary (the rest is for a later post) was an hour with Mrs. Rife.

Certainly you are patiently awaiting my opinion on this. By now you know I should enjoy the pool and swimming. You should also be aware that me and my mother's big ideas don't always mix well.

However, Big Idea #6 turned out pretty good.

Maria and I walked to Mrs. Rife's house every day. We spent an hour learning the various techniques for successful and safe swimming. I concentrated hard. This woman was teaching me something quite valuable. I definitely could see a future where I used what she taught. (Multiplication was another thing.)

I can still see her very short hair, her wrinkled face, and her bright red pants swimsuit. Yes, she wore pants when she was in the water. Maybe because she was modest. Maybe because she had a condition. I never could figure that one out.

She taught me well. Soon I was diving off boards and racing boys across the length of the pool without a lick of trouble.

After each lesson she put some kind of medicine in our ears. To keep us from getting a swimmer in our ear. (Like that could happen.) But I didn't argue.

The last day of lessons was the neatest. We had to jump in with all our clothes on, take off our shoes and pants while in the water, then swim to the side. Pretty cool....

My mom's big ideas were starting to gain some ground. Maybe I didn't have to hide anymore whenever she called a family meeting.