Who is Miranda Weston and why do people think she's my heroine?

Kate Walker sent me an email today and asked me why people kept turning up on her website and entering the Here Come The Brides contest with the erroneous notion that the heroine of my book, The Santorini Bride, is called Miranda Weston.


For those of you who missed it, she and I and Liz Fielding put together a contest celebrating our February books which all have "Bride" in the title. In order to be eligible to win, we asked that entrants tell us the full name of each of our "brides."

So far three people have said The Santorini Bride was Miranda Weston. For the record (if you want to enter), she's not.

But pretty soon they turned up on my site with the same answer, and I was as curious as Kate to figure out why three people thought she was. So, of course, I googled dear Miranda.

Miranda Weston is the heroine of, believe it or not (and sadly, I do believe it because I know from experience the mysterious ways that editors schedule books) another February book with the word Bridal in the title (The Greek's Bridal Purchase) by the lovely wonderful Susan Stephens.

This would not be cause for concern for either Susan or me except that my hero is called Theo Savas and hers (and this is where editorial needed to rethink the way they schedule things) is called Theo Savakis!

Great minds think alike -- or almost, I guess.

Spooky. Disconcerting.

All I can hope is that when they decide to look at sales, they combine ours and give us credit for double the sales -- because sure as anything people are going to look at hers and think they've read mine or mine and think they've read hers.

This deja vu book business is a little worrisome. If you recall (and you may not, but trust me, I do) the last time I had a book out in UK they gave it the same cover that they gave my previous book in the US, so that anyone who had read the earlier US version would have thought they'd already read it when they saw the same cover AGAIN.

And now Susan and I and our respective Theos get to go head-to-head.

I guess this is actually preferable to one of the Theos coming out right after the other so that people would think they had already read it when the second Theo came out. And thank God my heroine is NOT Miranda. Though her first name does begin with an M. Sigh.

You would think someone in scheduling would notice these things. Well, I'd think that -- but that is probably why I am not an editor. I imagine Susan would also think it, too, which is probably why she's not an editor either.

Anyway, . . . if you were one of those who thought Miranda was my heroine, you might want to resubmit your contest entry. And if you haven't entered yet, you now know her first name is not Miranda!