Author Barbara Samuel stopped by to give us some info on her contribution to the Once Upon a Wedding anthology, out June 11th. I LOVE second chance romance and can’t wait to read this.

I love reunion romances.  I mean, really. Who doesn’t wonder what if about some old sweetheart?  

Awhile back, I read a statistic that said that if a pair of former boyfriend/girlfriends meet many years later and both are single, they have a very high probability of getting back together.  

Then I saw a picture of Helen Mirren looking hot and artistic at about age 60 or maybe more, and thought, all of her old boyfriends would be delighted to be with her again.  

When I saw the photo of Helen and Idris Elba together at some function, all the elements came together and a story was born.  (Who among us doesn’t love Idris, after all?)  I juggled their ages to make them equals, and ta da!

Romance has traditionally been about young lovers getting together to solve problems and then (often) raise a family together.  But people are living a really long time, now—people making it to a hundred are one of the largest growing populations in our society.   A healthy woman in her forties, fifties, sixties and beyond is still interested in sex and love. Why shouldn’t she have a chance to find happiness, either for the first time, or again? 

Nina and Marcus met in high school and for four years, they were inseparable, despite the disapproval of Marcus’s colonel father.  Nina is a passionate artist, and the Colonel wants his son to stick to a more reliable world. When the pair are dramatically parted at the end of senior year, both are devastated, but they never speak again. 

Until they meet again—at the wedding of their children. Both are widowed and accomplished. But how can they possibly start something new now?  Sparks fly and surprises pop out of the gift boxes as Nina and Marcus fall all over again. 

I hope you’ll check out our whole Once Upon a Wedding anthology, for a collection of stories as unique and winning as the authors who penned them. And if you haven’t already, join us at Fiction from the Heart on Facebook.