In January, I attended my first ever wedding. Later, I mentioned the event in passing at my publisher’s office. “Wait,” someone said. “You wrote a whole book about a wedding before you’d been to one?”
At that stage I had signed off on the final proofs of my second novel, The Happy Couple. Matrimony structures the plot; the first chapter opens with the couple getting engaged, and we follow them as the ceremony draws near. Why choose this setup when I’d never attended a wedding? Because I thought it would make a good book. To me, marriage is like extreme sports: I’m thrilled for those who partake, and have zero interest in joining them.
