Dear Reader,

During the years my husband I and the kids lived in Austin, Texas, it snowed only twice—and melted the next day in both cases. So you can imagine our excitement our first winter in North Carolina when we learned a major snowstorm was on the way. Unfortunately, we couldn’t have been less prepared. We had no rock salt or sand for the sidewalks, no shovel to clear them, and perilously few supplies.

Gamely, we ran out to get milk, bread, and a bag of rock salt. (We didn’t get a shovel because we didn’t think we would really need one.) We put our eldest daughter on a plane back to college, and settled in for a few inches.

The “few inches” turned into the Blizzard of the Century-- as the local news reports took to calling it—delivered in three separate back to back snowstorms that closed schools and businesses for a week. During that time, as my family and I struggled to dig our way out of the driveway with a garden shovel, a hoe, a rake and other assorted garden tools, I found myself doing plenty of daydreaming. What if a runaway bride, a schoolteacher on a field trip and a young mother with her baby got stranded by a snowstorm, at the worst possible times in the best possible places, with the men of their dreams? The result? A trilogy entitled Blizzards, Brides & Babies, featuring three romantic comedies—SNOWBOUND BRIDE, HOT CHOCOLATE HONEYMOON AND SNOW BABY.

And while two of the books are now available only in libraries and at used book stores, I am thrilled to announced that SNOWBOUND BRIDE has recently been reissued in both paperback and made available on e-reader as well.

Happy reading and best wishes,

Cathy Gillen Thacker
(who now has two shovels and a bag of rock salt, “just in case.”)