Liar's Guide to True Love

Liar’s Guide to True Love

By Wendy Chen

Wedding planner Cassandra Hanley is in the business of making other people's dreams come true. But for some reason, whenever she meets a potential mate of her own, she finds herself telling little (and not so little) white lies. She's not trying to sabotage her relationships on purpose: as a people pleaser, she just naturally tells men what she thinks they want to hear.

When Cassandra meets Nick, she's determined to be herself this time—until she learns he abhors weddings. So she recasts herself as an advertising exec, and now she's scrambling to cover up the lie…with more lies.

Into the tangled web wanders Cassandra's college sweetheart, Kevin. Kevin, the one man who knows the real Cassandra, and loves her anyway. Could he have been The One all along?

Torn between the past and the present, Cassandra is about to learn that you can't plan the perfect life the way you can plan the perfect wedding.

83,000 words

Dear Reader,

What do you get when you cross summer with lots of beach time, and long hours of traveling? An executive editor who's too busy to write the Dear Reader letter, but has time for reading. I find both the beach and the plane are excellent places to read, and thanks to plenty of time spent on both this summer (I went to Australia! And New Zealand!) I'm able to tell you with confidence: our fall lineup of books is outstanding.

We kick off the fall season with seven romantic suspense titles, during our Romantic Suspense celebration in the first week of September. We're pleased to offer novella
Fatal Destiny
by Marie Force as a free download to get you started with the romantic suspense offerings. Also in September, fans of Eleri Stone's sexy, hot paranormal romance debut novel,
Mercy,
can look forward to her follow-up story,
Redemption,
set in the same world of the Lost City Shifters.

Looking to dive into a new erotic romance? We have a sizzling trilogy for you. In October, look for Christine D'Abo's Long Shots trilogy featuring three siblings who share ownership of a coffee shop, and each of whom discover steamy passion within the walls of a local sex club. Christine's trilogy kicks off with
Double Shot.

In addition to a variety of frontlist titles in historical, paranormal, contemporary, steampunk and erotic romance, we're also pleased to present two authors releasing backlist titles with us. In October, we'll re-release four science fiction romance titles from the backlist of C.J. Barry, and in November four Western romance titles from the backlist of Susan Edwards.

Also in November, we're thrilled to offer our first two chick lit titles from three debut authors,
Liar's Guide to True Love
by Wendy Chen and
Unscripted
by Natalie Aaron and Marla Schwartz. I hope you'll check out these fun, sometimes laugh-out-loud novels.

Whether you're on the beach, on a plane, or sitting in your favorite recliner at home, Carina Press can offer you a diverting read to take you away on your next great adventure this fall!

We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

Happy reading!

~Angela James

Executive Editor, Carina Press

www.carinapress.com

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Springtime Sundays are my favorite days. I can sit in front of my window with a chai latte and a toasted bagel, completely relaxed after another event. Yesterday evening’s at Pier 60 was a particular success. The florists from Bloom outdid themselves as usual, creating archways of every pink flower they could find (with the exception of roses, which the bride considered much too trite). All the food, from the fried crawfish served in paper cones to the mini milk shakes and fries at the end, was incredible, as one would expect from Abigail Kirsch.

As I flip through
The New York Times,
I know I’m in for an extra treat. There they are, my bride and groom, right next to the “Vows” column. Their eyebrows are perfectly aligned, just as
The Times
requires for photos, and they look truly happy. There have been several over the past few years, and they never fail to give me a thrill. Oh, I know the “Sunday Styles” section isn’t exactly the forefront of fashion, and it’s not like I am ever mentioned in any of the columns. But I guess that just shows how much I love my job. Yeah, I know that sounds like a corny lie because who in the world even
likes
their jobs these days. But it’s true—I genuinely love what I do.

And what is it that I do exactly?

I coddle and coordinate. I shop and style. I advise and admire.

I am a Wedding Consultant/Coordinator/Planner/Producer. Call me whatever you want; it’s just semantics.

It all started when I graduated from college with a degree in Art History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art didn’t want to hire me. With a typing speed of only forty words per minute, my temping career was limited (in my opinion, anyone who can type faster than that is spending too much time at a keyboard that will be obsolete in a decade). To make a long story of early twenties turmoil short, I had little to do and a lot of time to do it. So when my best friend Suzanne decided to get married to the surgeon-to-be that she hooked up with during Senior Week in college, I offered to plan her wedding while she began medical school.

Suze’s wedding was my most challenging to date, and of course will always be my favorite. It was a low-budget affair of course, as most twenty-two-year-old students’ weddings are apt to be. I had to be ultra creative, from negotiating a discount for bulk gerbera daisies at the flower market, to hand-making a crystal tiara for under fifty bucks. I have to admit that I didn’t do it alone, either. I mean, for Pete’s sake, I was twenty-two. What did I know about weddings? Suzanne was really no help either. Between her exhausting med-school schedule and being just plain smitten, she could have scooted down to City Hall for a quick ceremony dressed in a white lab coat for all she cared. “Do whatever you want,” she kept saying to me. “As long as I am Mrs. Michael Bryant afterward, I don’t care what the wedding is like,” she would say with a sigh. But I, of course, did not want my best friend to someday look back on her wedding photos and think how she wished she had done this tradition, or had that kind of cake. I wanted her day to be
perfect.

And so I studied. I studied more diligently than I ever had in college. I read every bridal magazine (admittedly, there were a lot fewer of them then than there are these days). I read every wedding-planning book. And I was broke, so I studied the old-fashioned way, sitting at the Mid-Manhattan Library. On nice days I sat across the street at Bryant Park—that public setting often meant I had to endure well-meaning questions from strangers passing by. “Are you getting married?” They would smile, peering at my stack of reading material, and then look quizzically at my bare left hand.

It was mostly women in their late twenties or early thirties who stopped to ask me. Women who were recently married, without kids, so they still had that wedding-planning nostalgia. They often looked wistful, and peeked to see which wedding dress ad I happened to be flipping through. And it was during one of these times that I could almost feel how important this day is to most brides. I wanted Suzanne to be one of those women who thought their wedding day was the happiest day of their lives, who couldn’t help but start smiling when she thought about the romance and fun of her day. So I became even more determined that Suzanne experience a day she would never forget.

I have to hand it to my mother. She never lost patience when I called in the early hours of the morning with questions that kept me up at night. (Granted, my mother has been starting her day at 5:30 a.m. for as long as I can remember). Like when I needed to find out if it was okay if Suzanne’s mother threw the bridal shower. (It isn’t—no one in the bride’s immediate family should throw the shower because it might give guests the impression that they are greedy for gifts). And is taffeta the right fabric for a midsummer daytime affair? Does anyone even wear taffeta anymore? These days everyone does weddings their own way, but it’s nice just to know when you’re being unique and when you’re committing a
faux pas,
whether or not you care either way. I did draw the line at actually writing in to ask my questions to the editors of the magazines—remember, I wasn’t even the bride, or the official wedding planner. At that point I was pretty much just the glorified maid of honor.

My mother was the one who gave me the idea of the Emergency Kit. Not just any pouch filled with the usual ibuprofen, mini sewing kit and stain wipes. No, my Emergency Kit has morphed into a tote-sized, multi-pocketed
case,
organized with all the wedding-related contents that I’ve been able to think of. Just to start: 1) Makeup (all Bobbi Brown neutral eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, blush because you never know who will need what), 2) Multiple types of white ribbon (satin, organza, patterned, various widths), 3) Panty hose and thigh highs in various neutral shades and sizes, and of course, 4) the aforementioned ibuprofen,
mega
sewing kit with buttons included, and stain wipes. This Emergency Kit, which has since been the saving grace of many bridal-party members, and the single reason for many an additional referral, has also found itself adopted in my personal life. I can no longer carry those cute little wristlet or mini-clutches when I leave the house, oh no. A career filled with smoothing over hiccups before they become major disasters has compelled me to carry my own mini-version of an emergency kit as a habit. Oh, my Everyday Bag isn’t nearly as large, and it is Prada (high quality, light-weight, goes with everything), and it has helped me avoid minor meltdowns on multiple occasions.

During the entirety of planning Suzanne’s wedding, from the challenge of the budget, calming the mother of the bride, and of course the continuous shopping—I loved it all. And I was good at it! The ceremony and reception were gorgeously decorated—who knew gerbera daisies would become so popular among the fashionistas. The guests were kicking it up with the band we hired after scoping out college-town bars. Suzanne’s A-line dress was exactly suited for her body shape (the bodice was covered in lace and seed pearls—just perfect for Suzanne’s traditional personality). When one of Suzanne’s self-proclaimed socialite aunts asked for my business card, I knew I had found my calling. That was nine years ago and my devotion to my brides has outlasted some of the marriages (including Suzanne’s but I’ll get to that later).

It was during one of my bigger, more complicated weddings that I made a commitment to myself. I, Cassandra Hanley, was going to use everything I learned in dealing with brides, grooms, mothers of and other wedding-day stakeholders, and apply it to my own life. It makes sense, when you think about it. There are so many issues that arise when two people decide to spend their lives together. Just to name a few of the most common ones—

Mad Bride-itis: A woman can only talk about her wedding, suddenly losing all sense of self, style and sometimes common sense once she becomes engaged.

Second Chance Syndrome: Mothers think a wedding is all about themselves, because they never got to have the wedding of
their
dreams.

Sudden Onset Loutish-ness: The formerly caring fiancé suddenly becomes distant and boorish to cover up the fact that he feels emasculated by being the first (or last) of his friends to get married.

If I can plan the perfect wedding with all these disasters waiting to happen, clearly I can plan the perfect life.