Please Welcome Debra Mullins

Dreaming of Romance

My new book, THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING, just hit shelves a couple of weeks ago. I love having a book out in February because everyone is in the mood for romance! However, this book is kind of special to me…because the story came to me in a dream.

I’ve heard other writers talk about dreaming stories or having voices in their heads (characters, not crazies ), but inspiration never hit me that way. I always see things visually, like a movie in my head, and I would usually get my ideas from songs or TV or a newspaper headline. (My book JUST ONE TOUCH was inspired by Elizabeth Smart. How would a woman in Regency England handle a similar situation if there was no such thing as therapy?) So when I woke up one morning with this story in my head, I was somewhat awed. I immediately went to write the idea down, though it would be several years before I actually wrote the book.

That dream became THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING. Now the dream wasn’t 100% accurate. Some things had to be changed to make the story viable—like the hero’s name in the dream, which wasn’t really in use back then in Scotland. So he became Gabriel in the book, but the basic story was the same.


The clans of MacBraedon and Farlan have been feuding for many years. Back in the 1500’s, the chief of the MacBraedons agreed to marry the daughter of the Farlan chief in order to promote peace. However, the Farlan chief never intended the wedding to happen and plotted to murder the MacBraedon the night before the wedding. His plan is foiled by the MacBraedon, and to stop the bloodshed an ancient priestess casts a curse on the two clans. Every generation a Farlan lass will be born with the birthmark of the dagger, marking her as the Bride for the next MacBraedon chief. These two must wed by the girl’s eighteenth birthday or else terrible consequences will ensue: the MacBraedon groom will have no children with anyone but the Bride, and the Bride will slowly go mad. For both clans, there will be poverty and famine until things are righted by a marked Bride marrying her proper MacBraedon groom.

Oh, and the only way to break the curse is for a MacBraedon to bring a Farlan back from the dead. 

The heroine of the book, Catherine Depford, is the daughter of a Bride who ran away from her MacBraedon groom. Catherine knows nothing of the curse, having been born and raised in England. All she knows is that her mother went mad and killed herself, and now that Catherine has just turned eighteen, she is starting to experience episodes of madness herself. Strange dreams of a Scottish warrior. Chanting that no one else can hear. A compulsion to run north, towards Scotland.

Our hero is the current MacBraedon chief, whose uncle was left at the altar by his Bride, which triggered the curse. Gabriel has been trying to hold things together for the two clans, who after years of intermarrying have finally learned to live together. But the famine going on for the past twenty years has severely crippled his people. Now that he is of marriageable age, he has been looking for his Bride, hoping to save the clans. Finally some of his people discover Catherine in England, and he realizes he must go to London and convince her to marry him to satisfy the curse.

The thing is, she doesn’t believe in curses and has her own plans for marriage!

An excerpt from the book is up on my website at www.debramullins.com. I hope you’ll all stop by and take a look.