by Victoria Dahl, special contributor to Daily Net
RICHMOND, Virginia — Daily Net
Published on Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2010 10:14AM EDT
Last updated on Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2010 10:28AM EDT

Where in the world is Chloe Turner? Less than a week before her fiancé’s day of reckoning in a Virginia courthouse, the infamous Bridezilla is nowhere to be found. Her family denies knowing her location, but at least one of them is concerned. “I don’t know what’s going on with her,” cousin Tiffany Capshaw says. “She won’t call me back now that the wedding’s off. I just want to know how she’s doing, but she refuses to return my calls.”

It’s unlikely that ex-fiancé Thomas DeLorn has any idea where she is either. By all accounts, Chloe has not contacted him since the world discovered that he’d survived the plane crash that destroyed his Piper Aircraft in the depths of the Great Dismal Swamp. “They haven’t spoken,” a source close to the runaway groom has said. “It’s really weird.” Why? Because Thomas and Chloe would’ve been on their honeymoon this week. But while Thomas prepares to face possible felony charges related to his escape from the engagement, not to mention a possible civil suit over search and rescue costs, Chloe Turner maintains her silence.

Thomas has released the occasional statement, but Chloe hasn’t said a word about either his ill-planned escape from their engagement or the charges that she pushed him to that recklessness with her increasingly overbearing behavior.

“She was impossible,” cousin Tiffany claims. “She was always a little stuck up, but once the wedding plans started, you’d have thought she was marrying the president of England.” England, of course, doesn’t have a president, but Tiffany clarified her statement. “Everything had to be perfect. The groomsmen had to be handsome. Her bridesmaids couldn’t be fat. I found out why she didn’t ask me. I’m too short. She said I’d throw off the pattern from medium to tall. I heard she rejected another friend because her complexion clashed with the dresses Chloe wanted.”

Despite the stories of tantrums and bad behavior, a few people deny that Chloe was a Bridezilla at all. “It’s ridiculous!” best friend Jenn Castellan shouted when pressed for a comment. “She’s never been anything but nice. Never!” Jenn, who recently accused the paparazzi of chasing Chloe Turner down like a wild animal, has been her constant defender, but even she can’t explain what could’ve driven a man to fake his own death in order to escape a perfectly nice girl. “You’ll have to ask Thomas,” was her terse reply.

But Thomas has been a gentleman, at least in that regard. He has yet to comment on any of the stories about Chloe’s alleged mood swings, and a new story seems to emerge every day. “She seemed nice at first,” said LaShawna Hays, who sold Chloe Turner her wedding dress. As owner of Unique Bridal, she’s had years of experience with every type of Bridezilla, but says her internal alarms didn’t go off at first. “She came in with Thomas the first time. He was sweet to her, and she acted pretty excited.” But as the weeks went on, LaShawna explained, Chloe started making demands. “She wanted changes made to the dress, but when something didn’t turn out the way she wanted, she lost it. I never saw Thomas with her again.”

Of course, brides are under an enormous amount of pressure, explains Hollywood psychologist Harold Woolsey. “For aggressive, perfectionist personalities, this can push them to a sort of emotional break. They need the day to be perfect. They can’t accept that mistakes are inevitable. So they force everyone around them to perfection too. But once the wedding plans are in place, the idea of stopping the process is a devastating prospect. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Mr. DeLorn simply felt he had no other option but to disappear.”

The world first became aware of Thomas when his small plane crashed into Virginia’s Great Dismal Swamp. Rescue crews searched the dense woods for two days, assuming he’d wandered injured from the plane. But authorities soon found clues that Thomas hadn’t been in the plane when it crashed. The four-day manhunt for the missing bridegroom captivated the nation, and the mystery only deepened when he was found lounging on a beach in Florida.

Clearly, Thomas DeLorn was in dire straits when he chose to parachute out of his personal plane and make a run for it. But what, exactly, was going on behind the scenes? He’s already been charged with fraud, but we’ll undoubtedly find out more on Monday when the Commonwealth of Virginia is expected to file additional charges against Thomas DeLorn. The District Attorney is being close-lipped, but there’s increasing talk that Thomas received help.

“He was waiting for someone,” says an anonymous source who works at the beachside resort where Thomas hid during his disappearance. “He looked relaxed the first couple of days, and then he started getting nervous. He kept wandering into the lobby, trying to look casual.” Pictures of Thomas taken in Florida show him wearing sunglasses and a hat as he relaxes near the water. There’s no word on whether the tropical drink in his hand was a nod toward celebration or stress relief. One thing we do know for sure, Thomas wasn’t planning on returning to Virginia. He’d registered at the hotel under the name Simon Bale, and arrest reports confirm that he was found with thousands of dollars in cash. The charges on Monday may reveal more details of his plans to escape the clutches of his crazed bride.

So where is the spurned Bridezilla? Despite rumors that she’d decided to take her honeymoon without the groom, Daily Net can confirm that Chloe is not at the luxury resort in Hawaii where she was supposed to spend her first two weeks of wedded bliss. “Those reservations were canceled,” says a hotel spokesperson.

A fellow employee at the accounting firm where Chloe Turner works has confirmed her disappearance and that of her friend, Jenn Castellan. “They’re out of town,” the anonymous source alleged. “Partying. A girls’ week. They were planning to celebrate.” But what could Chloe have to celebrate the week before her fiancé faces such dire consequences? “I heard she got an offer from Playboy,” the coworker revealed. “But I don’t know about that. She’s kind of average.”

Average or not, Chloe Turner has captivated the nation’s attention. By all accounts, the couple was perfectly normal before the proposal. A video of the engagement party shows a cheerful woman toasting her future husband before draining the whole glass of champagne. But only eight months later, Thomas DeLorn would risk death rather than face the terror of calling off the wedding. What changed for this couple? What secrets have yet to be revealed?

Stay tuned to Daily Net for daily breaking news on the Bridezilla scandal, the trial, and the search for Chloe Turner.

Better yet, check out the brand new release from author Victoria Dahl, Crazy for Love.

By Emma Cunningham, Production Coordinator, Digital & Internet

Oh, Summer. Long days, warm weather—is there a better way to enjoy the heat than lounging with a book by the pool or on the beach?  If you can’t tell from our brand-new Harlequin Blog Summer layout, we don’t think so.

At Harlequin, we’re all crazy bookworms who spend our working and pleasure time immersed in books and romance (we know you’re super jealous, and no, you can’t have our jobs!) We frequently get sidetracked from producing books by talking about recent releases we love.  We were doing exactly that when we got the idea to put together a list of our favorite Summer 2010 books. We picked some old favorites that we’re reissuing and a bunch of fresh, new voices, and wound up with an eclectic list of contemporary romance, paranormal, and everything in between. And so Big Summer Reads was born.

Now that we had an exciting program like Big Summer Reads, we had to think of the best possible way to get it out there.  And you know what we love besides reading outside in the sun? Bloggers. In fact, we love them so much, that we’ve put together a massive and still growing database of book blogs and we’re sending out a selection of ebooks from our Big Summer Reads list for review. Some lucky bloggers will even get some fancy prizes to help readers enjoy their summer reading experience even more!

Here are some of the Big Summer Reads books that we’re e-mailing out to bloggers:

Linda Lael Miller – McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

Susan Andersen – Skintight

Marie Ferrarella – Finding Happily-Ever-After

Brenda Jackson – Star of His Heart

Victoria Dahl – Crazy for Love

Susan Mallery – Almost Perfect

Susan Grant – Sureblood

Kristan Higgins – All I Ever Wanted

Debbie Macomber – Orchard Valley Brides

Debbie Macomber – Orchard Valley Grooms

Susan Wiggs, Susan Mallery, Sherryl Woods – Summer Brides (The Borrowed Bride, Fireside, Harbor Lights, Accidentally Yours)

Robyn Carr – The House on Olive Street

Just a sample of what you can find in the Big Summer Reads program

So, to sum it all up, look for the Big Summer Reads featured on your favorite blog soon. And if you’re a blogger yourself, don’t hesitate to give me a shout and I’ll happily send some free books for review your way, too.

Editor’s Note: this month is National Women’s Month and starting March 8th, International Women’s Day, we are featuring writers who have shared with us their thoughts on reading romance. Today we’ve asked Dear Author’s Jane how National Women’s Month pertains to romance novels. Click here for more blog posts on the subject!

By Jane Litte, blogger for Dear Author

International Women’s Day was started in 1911 to celebrate and agitate for women’s equality.  Nearly 100 years later, women have achieved great freedoms: the right to vote, the right to own property, and earn a living wage.  It seems that the next great challenge, beyond getting the right to be paid the same for the same work, is the right to own our sexuality.

I often think that romance books are criticized for being about sex because there is something challenging about a woman as a fully cognizant sexual being.  Take, for example, sex and violence. 

In many mystery and suspense books, there is very graphic violence, usually toward women.  Women are captured in groups and have snakes sent up their legs to violate them.  In Brett Eason Ellis’ book, American Psycho, the protagonist sends a rat through a prostitute’s body and chases after her with a chain saw.  In Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series, Lena Adams is violently raped more than once and in more than one book.

Mysteries and suspense books are considered real literature, worthy of reviews in major newspapers and considered for major awards.   There is very little discussion about the level of violence in these books or the abuse of women that seem to be a central theme and what the readers of those books are seeking.

Yet, women that read books that praise a woman seeking out and having orgasms, seeking pleasure, deriving pleasure are held up for mockery and disdain.  Some of the more erotic romances are called one handed reads, presuming that the stories are a) read for titillation and b) that there might be something wrong with point a.

What can be wrong with a woman reading about other women getting pleasure, both physically and emotionally?  Why is that perverse or dangerous?

I know Victoria Dahl, author of Talk Me Down, gets a lot of flack for writing her “dirty” books but I enjoy the sex positive attitudes of her lead characters.

 

In the 19th Century, women were cautioned not to read, particularly pulp fiction because they were said to be susceptible to the power of fiction.  Some argue that romance readers will generate unrealistic expectations of life, relationships, or love.

I think that if there was more equality in the sexes about sexuality, romance novels would appear to be less dangerous, less provocative.