Guest Author and Giveaway: Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Hey y'all! Jenai invited me (Pamela Fagan Hutchins) to guest post on Bookingly Yours to promote my upcoming book, Love Gone Viral.  You can read more about and buy Love Gone Viral and my other books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, or even my publisher's website, SkipJack Publishing. If you want to enter a raffle to win a free Love Gone Viral ebook, follow the instructions at the bottom of this post, and good luck.


Now, reprinted by permission of SkipJack Publishing, here's an excerpt called "Was she a bad picker or a bad partner?" from Love Gone Viral. I wrote it about second (and third) chances at "happily ever after," when I attended the "third chance" wedding of a friend.


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I grew up listening to Captain & Tennille spin their songs of love, some of them foot-stomping fun—“You Better Shop Around” (yeah, baby) or “Love Will Keep Us Together”—and others touching the deepest part of my young soul—“Muskrat Love,” anyone? One song in particular stuck with me, though: “The Wedding Song.” Take a moment to Google the lyrics, and keep them open for reference. I’d put them here, but then I’d have to pay the songwriters. You guys know how cheap I am, so get to Googling. 


It’s the memory of these lyrics that sent me into a tidal wave of emotion at a wedding I attended, the wedding of a couple that deserves membership in the Love Gone Viral club, for sure. I want to tell you the bride’s story, a story of hope for many of us, a story that will sound and feel oh-so-familiar, and a story of second—and third—chances.

Once upon a time, a beautiful, exotic woman gave up on love. Love, and the absence of love, had kicked the crap out of her for a decade, so she spent the next ten years with her chin lifted high. She showed the world that she didn’t need love, she didn’t need any One. She mothered her two children and became a great success at everything but love. When men would woo, she had only to look into the mirror at the scars no one could see and look deep into those big brown eyes to find her no. Was she a bad picker or a bad partner? Who knew? Who cared. All that mattered was not going through the pain again for something she, a strong woman, didn’t need, for something that she really didn’t believe existed anymore.


And then she met a man. A man who wanted to marry her. And she had to look in that mirror again and ask her twice-divorced self: What’s to be the reason for us to become man and wife?


Not security. Not money. Not the promise of children. Not family pressure or religious convictions. For God’s sake, they could just live together after all, keep it simple, make the split less painful (or at least less costly) when it came. It had always come before.
But she said yes. Because it had happened: that blinding flash of hope so exquisitely true she couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain.


Loving is the answer. Real love. The kind of love only romantics—strong people—believe in. She believes in something she has never, not in all her forty-four years, seen before.


Oh, there is love.


Yes, there is love . . . 


And, so, on a lovely day in March, this dear, dear, beautiful, wounded woman lifted high her chin once again, but this time also her heart, and announced to the world that she took this man, not just as Someone, but as The One. She and her new husband stood with their lightning in a bottle suspended between them on gossamer threads, for all to see. That day, they replaced hope with trust. 


I wish them more laughter than tears, more joy than sorrow, and more kisses than curses, because life gives us both. May they always remember how fragile that bottle suspended between them is, and that if they lift a hand to point at the other, it will fall. Instead, may they work as hard as it takes to put the relationship before themselves and enjoy their dream of crossword puzzles and growing old together.


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Thanks for reading everyone, and don't forget to enter. Oh, and if you want to know more about me, click HERE to read my super-scintillating bio (and while you're there, feel free to subscribe to my blog or follow me all over social media).

GIVE AWAY GIVE AWAY

The author is giving away an e-book of Love Gone Viral. 

This is open for international readers.

To join the book giveaway, leave a comment with your email. Extra points will be given to those who will follow Bookingly Yours, share this post thru Facebook and/or Twitter, with the link/s included in the comment section. Book give away will end on May 26 and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter.