Book Talk

Romance in the air

We are READY for wedding season.

Need help choosing your gown? The Wedding Gown Book by Elizabeth Bowers, takes your hand and leads you through the whole decision process. From fabric to style, to dealing with tattoos, you are informed. And since she recommends having you gown chosen at least six months before the day, you’d best get busy.

Peggy Post, the etiquette maven, will give brides the confidence to do things their way. In A Wedding like no Other: Inspiration for Creating a Unique, Personal, and Unforgettable Celebration, she offers suggestions for personalizing the day. Merging cultures and families, choosing the traditions that are essential to your families, and sample wedding vows are included along with practical concerns like parking spaces and electric supply.

The Perfect Wedding, by Maria McBride-Mellinger is not only full of photos for dream weddings, but she includes sources you can contact for accessories, china, floral supplies and even dream locations. Bring your wallet!

Beautiful Wedding Receptions: Money Saving and Easy Ideas to Fit your Style and Budget, by Donna Kooler, actually has some attemptable ideas. From the wedding cake to hiring musicians, there are money saving tips. My favorite section?  “Frostings and Their Friends”

Miriam Gourley offers suggestions for Wedding Decorations on a Budget. She gives samples of different styles of weddings, from rustic to romantic to Bohemian and then shows you how to create the effect you want, inexpensively.

Wedding gifts can go to the bride and groom or to anyone involved in the festivities. Some of the clever suggestions in Wedding Crafts: 40 Charming Ideas for a Unique Personalized Wedding, include a beauty basket loaded with items to pamper the bride on her wedding day, a tablecloth for the cake table, a decorated picture frame, a lace edged handkerchief for the bride’s mother and small gift bags of sugared almonds for all.

And if you are overwhelmed by the responsibilities of being a bridesmaid check out The Bridesmaid’s Handbook, by Kathy Passero. There are twenty pages just on dealing with the dreaded bridesmaid dress! Reassuringly there is also a chapter on how to actually enjoy this whole process (and remain friends with the bride).

Fiction

Daphne Joyes owns a small flower business named The Rarest Blooms. She also takes in young ladies who have been victims of misfortune. When the reprobate, The Duke of Castleford, inherits that property, the two seem destined to clash till they form an alliance that leads to romance. The ever-popular Madeline Hunter has written Dangerous in Diamonds.

In Nowhere Near Respectable, by Mary Jo Putney, ne’er-do-well Damian MacKensie rescues Lady Kiri Lawford from smugglers. More attractive than is reasonable, Kiri falls for him. Only when she discovers a plot against the crown does Damian find her irresistible, too.

Jodi Brand, Miss Rodeo Wyoming, left town with a modeling contract. Returning to reconnect with her home, she falls head over heels for bad boy Teague Treadwell. Read Cowboy Fever by Joanne Kennedy and find out if a beauty queen can fall for a small town cowboy.

Nothing is more alluring than a Love Drunk Cowboy named Rye O’Donnell, as career woman Austin Lanier, finds out. When she inherits a watermelon farm from her grandmother, Rye thinks he can get his dream property cheap. Sparks fly in this new romance by Carolyn Brown, author of a book with one of my favorite titles, My Give a Damn’s Busted.

Virginia Cooper
Adult Services Librarian