It's Easter Monday 'DownUnder' which is a public holiday. Many people get five days off over Easter..that's a big break and the retailers know it. For a month before Easter the junk mail is FULL of camping equipment sales and DIY sales. In the past we've done both of those things. We've often painted bedrooms, completed a big garden project. We've also gone camping. This year we took a road trip to visit my cousins in South Australia...the state next door. 

We also used it as an opportunity to visit Adelaide University. My eldest son will be off to uni/college next year and he's keeping his options open and we've been visiting quite a few places! It was also a chance for him to get more kilometres/miles under his belt driving because where we live he has to have driven 120 hours before he can sit his driver's test.


It was great catching up with family and seeing the cousins playing together.  I was able to share my exciting news with them and I want to share it here with you too!  Two weeks ago, I woke up to hear my iPad going ping, ping, ping. I stumbled out into the kitchen and read, 'Congratulations on your #Rita12 nomination.' My heart almost stopped and I automatically looked toward the phone to see if the message bank was blinking. Had I missed a phone call in the middle of the night telling me this news? 

Somehow I managed to get my fingers to work and I found the RWA list and yes, there under Single Title Contemporary Romance was my name and next to it was Boomerang Bride. I rang Angela James, the Chief Executive Editor of Carina Press and she told me I was the first Carina Press author to be nominated for a RITA^®  SQUEE!! For those of you who don't know about the RITA^®,  it is the Romance Writers of Amercia's award for published authors. My peers had read this book and deemed it worthy of being nominated.


This is a really special nomination for so many reasons, including the fact this book took a long time to find a home. It shares my love tor Australia and my love for the USA. It combines all the wonderful things about small towns in both countries and I just loved writing it. To read more about it including the song that inspired it, click here.

To celebrate my nomination, I'd love to give away an eBook version of Boomerang Bride.  To be in with a chance to win, tell me how you celebrated Easter this year. Remember to leave your email address in the comment in case you win!  

If you'd like to buy your own copy of Boomerang Bride it is available as a physical book and and an eBook

Fiona Lowe is an award-winning, multi-published author with Harlequinand Carina Press. Whether her books are set in outback Australia or in the mid-west of the USA, they feature small towns with big hearts, and warm, likeable characters that make you fall in love. When she's not writing stories, she's a weekend wife, mother of two 'ginger' teenage boys, guardian of 80 rose bushes and often found collapsed on the couch. A current RT Book Reviwers' Choice Award nominee, you  can find her at her website, facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

Boomerang Bride is available now from Carina Press,Amazon Kindle, Nook and all other online book stores

Family Traditions

My youngest son turned 13 recently. He's a teen! This is a good thing; really, it is ;-) and it's a milestone that needs acknowledging because he's entering a new phase of his life.

I'm big on celebrating significant events. Both my boys had 'naming' celebrations when they were born and every birthday is celebrated but this one, like 18 and 21, needs a bit more fanfare. I call them the 'rite of passage' birthdays. I'm also big on celebrating the little things and inventing little traditions that frame our lives. Like family games night and squish-on-the-couch movie night.

Our tradition for turning 13 is a meal at a silver-service restaurant- you know the type...no kids menu :-) We chose a restaurant in the country, nestled between a vineyard and an olive grove and where the art of the grounds and inside the restaurant is as amazing as the food. This suited Boy Wonder down to the ground as he's got a great eye art and he's especially loves buildings. He got a total kick out of the new wine-tasting building. Isn't it awesome? A building built on it's side, complete with stumps sticking out:-) 

Sculpture abounds and everywhere you turn you see something new that your gaze missed the first time; like the wire sculpture next to the water tank of the man fishing, complete with a fish on his hook and a glass of wine in his hand. Humor and whimsy is everywhere and after a three course lunch we enjoyed wandering around the gardens and walking off the food:-)

I guess because family traditions are important to me, it's why they often end up in my books. In Boomerang Bride, I gave tradition a bit of a wicked twist because in life, not all traditions are necessarily good!  Matilda grew up in a family where the tradition/belief was that the Geoffrey women travelled across the world for love. This ended up getting her in a bit of hot water and it's why the book opens with Matilda in small town Wisconsin, wearing a wedding dress, holding a cake, but missing a groom.

Do you have family traditions? Good ones, bad ones? I'm all ears.

Fiona Lowe writes stories set in small towns with big hearts. Whether they're set in small town USA or outback Australia, the one thing they have in common is a happy ever after that will make you sigh. For all the goss on her latest releases, and where to find her on the 'net, check out her website. Boomerang Bride and Career Girl in the Country are out now.