Everyone knows that planning a wedding can be murder, but when top D.C. wedding planner Annabelle Archer finds an old nemesis hanging by a bridal veil in a hotel ballroom, she's shocked to discover that wedding planners can be murdered as well! Carolyn McCrabe was D.C.'s grande dame of wedding planning and made more than a few enemies in her day, but because many of the hotel staff saw Carolyn and Annabelle arguing only minutes before the aging diva's demise, Annabelle is immediately pegged as the prime suspect. Determined to shake the suspicion from their beloved colleague and friend, Annabelle's flirtatious assistant Kate, flamboyant caterer Richard, and the always–fabulous hairdresser Fern team up to investigate other suspects. But when another wedding planner is found murdered––strangled by a curling iron cord at an industry party––Annabelle realizes that she might not only be a suspect, but a crazed killer's next victim as well.
Laura Durham is the author of "For Better Or Hearse" and "Better Off Wed," the first two novels in the Annabelle Archer mystery series from Avon. Like her protagonist, Laura is a professional wedding planner in Washington, D.C. who has planned some of the city's most extravagant weddings and dealt with some of the world's most neurotic brides.
She was inspired to write Better Off Wed because of an overwhelming desire to kill a particularly unpleasant Mother-of-the-Bride, or MOB. Realizing that actually doing the deed would be bad for business, she settled for writing murder instead. The resulting fictionalized expose of the Washington wedding industry has been called "the perfect mixture of mirth and murder."
Laura attended Duke University on a full writing scholarship, graduating in 1993 with a degree in English. Laura's first job out of school was with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill first as a manuscript reader, then as a publicity assistant, and finally as an editor.
After relocating to Washington, D.C. and realizing that editing government documents wasn't her cup of tea, Laura began planning weddings with lots of enthusiasm and little experience. She started at the bottom of the bridal heap, even doing a memorable wedding outside a prison yard, before working her way up the ladder to become one of the most sought after society wedding planners in the city.
Laura is currently the owner of the D.C. based Engaging Affairs, Inc. and has planned over 400 weddings since she started the company in 1996. She was voted DC's top wedding planner in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Washingtonian magazine and has been featured in numerous wedding publications throughout the country.
Despite a busy writing and touring schedule (and a new baby), she keeps one foot in the bridal business because her real wedding experiences continue to be the inspiration for her books. True brides are always stranger than fiction!
