Have you ever played matchmaker and fixed up at friend?  Ever been fixed up yourself, as in, agreed to a totally blind date on the say-so of someone else playing matchmaker?

Matchmaking fascinates me.  No, I’ve never done it – have never known two people who are available at the same time and might actually like each other – but I do love stories of weddings from fix-ups and the pride that the matchmaker feels.

What are the risks?  In theory, nothing.  You try a match with the best of intentions, and if you fail, you try again.  In reality, it’s more complex.  The friend you’re fixing up may be fragile, which puts her self-esteem at stake.  And if she thinks the guy you paired her with is a total jerk, your friendship may be hurt.  We all want our friends to trust our judgment, right?

Matchmaking does sometimes work, though, hence the point of this blog.  My Matchmaker Trilogy is coming in eBook form on April 1.  The covers are brand new.  You like?

I have always loved this trilogy – in part because Victoria Lesser is no typical matchmaker, but also because the dynamic of throwing two people together without their say-so and at horrible times in each of their lives, is great fun to write.

Half the fun, of course, is the isolated settings in which my characters find themselves.  As opposed to an evening’s blind date, which, if disastrous, is over and done in a few hours, the couples in these books are stuck with each other for far longer in a place that is either isolated or remote.  In other words, they can’t escape.  If they hate each other (which some do), they’re stuck.  Granted, hate can evolve into love given time and opportunity.  Still, being ‘stuck’ harkens back to the concept of arranged marriages, which give me the willies.

Whereas all three books in the Crosslyn Rise trilogy take place in the same north-shore-of-Massachusetts setting, the three books in the Matchmaker Trilogy have scattered settings.  The Real Thing is set on a remote Maine island; Crossed Hearts is set in a rural New Hampshire cabin in the woods; The Invitation is set in the Caribbean, which is where I’d like to be right now, given the nightmare of the winter we’ve had.  A warning here.  If you read these three books when they first came out, you may be confused, because my publisher has changed the names of two of the three.  The Real Thing is still The Real Thing, but Crossed Hearts was originally Twelve Across, and The Invitation was originally A Single Rose.  Each book stands on its own, though you’ll love getting updates on earlier characters if you read them in order – The Real Thing, then Crossed Hearts, then The Invitation.

The Matchmaker Trilogy is more than twenty years old, but these three books were among my later romances, hence written in a style closer to my current one.  If you’ve read any of the three before, why not pay a revisit?  I did and was rewarded with three thoroughly fun reads.

Please let me know what you think!