The Accidental Bride: A Romantic Comedy

Set in today's computer age, Harayda's debut novel is a witty and wise comedy of manners that pays homage to Jane Austen. Lily Blair, 27, a newspaper reporter and free spirit, has become engaged in haste and refuses to repent at leisure. Shortly before her wedding to ""the third richest man in the second largest city in Ohio,"" she decides to call the whole thing off--but can she? Lily's family is leaning hard on her, for various class-conscious reasons, to tie the knot; and after all, not only is Mark rich and generous--he gave Lily an engagement ring ""the size of a sweet potato""--but he's also handsome, charming and reads Lily's beloved Austen in his spare time. When Lily's father makes her promise to get therapy before she calls off the wedding, her therapist tells her: ""It's a very tough world out there for single women... if you break your engagement, there is a good chance you will spend the rest of your life alone."" For Lily, however, there are two stumbling blocks to marrying Mark: she has never pictured getting married at all, and her heart belongs to New York--while Mark's father has bought them an extravagantly hideous house in Ohio. Harayda's sharp characterizations and wry humor gleefully lampoon bridal showers--chicken-liver centerpieces sculpted in the shape of a cruise ship, for example--and other absurd style-over-substance nuptial minutiae. Harayda fleshes out Lily with a refreshing combination of emotional fragility and headstrong, illogical self-awareness, making her all the more endearing. Readers will find themselves rooting for Lily to triumph in defining her own version of a happy ending. (June) FYI: Harayda is vice president of the National Book Critics Circle.