Mary Gardner's Home Page

When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let it go. --Carol Burnett

As an aspiring author, I've completed several manuscripts.
These are the most recent.

MISSING

Maddy Parker expects her life to change when she wins a multi-million dollar lottery, but she didn’t expect to find out that she’d been stolen from her biological family when she was an infant. Having grown up in a poverty-stricken, severely dysfunctional family, who reminded her often that they only adopted her because no one else wanted her, Maddy is shocked to learn that her biological parents have waited for her to come back to them since the day she was taken. She also learns that she has an identical twin sister and a brother waiting for her in Indiana.

Blake Sonderman had been seven when his next-door neighbor’s baby girl was taken. Now, a widowed father of a six-year-old daughter, he eagerly uses his contacts from the years he worked as an FBI agent to help verify that Maddy Parker is really Stacy Wilkerson. Soon after meeting Maddy, Blake realizes that he’s risking his heart as he arranges for her to come to his financially struggling resort in Whispering Cove, Indiana to meet her biological family.

For thirty-one years, Anna Wilkerson has dreamed of the day her missing daughter would come home to her. She’s always believed that if she’d been watching her girls more closely, her baby girl wouldn’t have been taken. Every dream Anna has had about reuniting with her stolen child collide with the reality that her daughter is an adult stranger. In order for her hope to have her family whole again to be realized, Anna must first find a way to forgive herself and accept that the past can’t be changed.

As Maddy gets to know her biological family, she can’t shake her adoptive mother’s prediction that no one will ever want her for long. Her anxiety is increased by her fear that her identical twin sister won’t accept her. Gradually, Maddy learns that her biological family is nothing like her adoptive family. Their capacity to love transcends her fears. Loving them is the easy part; accepting that their love won’t be snatched away from her is far more difficult. Then there is Blake, who seems too good to be true. Dare she risk her heart and accept his love and admit that she loves him? In the end, learning to trust and accept love brings Maddy the kind of
happiness money could never buy.

Honorable Mention - 2004 Heart of the Rockies
Colorado Romance Writers
Long Contemporary Category

4th - 2005 Romance Junkies Writing Contest
Contemporary Category
www.romancejunkies.com

2nd - 2005 Golden Rose Contest
The Rose City Romance Writers
Mainstream with Strong Romantic Elements

3rd - Duel on the Delta
Mainstream with Strong Romantic Elements
Contemporary Category
River City Romance Writers

3rd - Linda Howard Award of Excellence
for unpublished authors
Single Title Category
Southern Magic RWA

1st - The 2006 Marlene Awards
Washington Romance Writers
Fiction with Romantic Element

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

Widowed Marcy Albright’s life is complicated when her twin four-year-old sons, with the help of her grandmother, buy her a man at the Willamette Indiana Holiday Celebrity Auction. After living as the topic of gossip during her unhappy three year marriage to a young U.S. Senator, who was murdered along with his mistress, Marcy craves a quiet life where she can concentrate on raising her sons. She is in the process of closing her small catering business because she doesn’t like the time she has to give up with her sons. As a young man who’d grown up in Willamette, Indiana, Pete Barnett thought he had his future mapped out, until he experienced a severely broken heart when testicular cancer robbed him of the children he always wanted and the woman he thought loved him walked out on him during the worst of his chemotherapy. After surviving his broken heart and cancer, Pete has vowed to himself that he’d never be so badly hurt by love again. His number one rule is no commitments where women are concerned, even if that means never getting married. In the past ten years, Pete has completed law school and returned to Willamette where he owns the largest law firm in town, is an active volunteer with the young people at the Boys and Girls Club, and is campaigning for mayor.

When Pete is bought by Marcy’s twins as a birthday present for their mother, he finds himself battling the temptation of taking a risk on love. Marcy can’t believe she could be tempted by another politician, but Pete makes it hard for her to resist the possibilities of finding love and happiness. While they both feel the only way to protect their hearts is to avoid seeing each other. However, fate and two four-year-olds have other ideas, and avoiding each other seems impossible. After winning the mayoral election and deciding to ask Marcy to marry him, Pete once again feels he has his future mapped out. But when his routine oncologist appointment reveals that he has another tumor, he can’t face repeating the heartbreak of the past and leaves Marcy without telling her about the tumor. When Marcy learns she is pregnant with a child Pete didn’t believe he could have, she goes in search of him despite feeling he doesn’t want her. She learns about the surgery he’s had, but is asked by his brother not to come to him unless she loves him enough to stand by him no matter what happens in their future. She goes to Pete, and together they learn that the tumor was not cancer. Marcy takes Pete to her home to recover from his surgery and there she tells him about their baby. Together they decide not to let the pain of their past rob them of their future happiness together.

2003 Barclay Sterling Awards for Unpublished Authors Top Ten
Lake Country Romance Writers
Contemporary Category

ALL MY TOMORROWS
Previously titled PROMISES

Allysa Albertson is the owner of a chain of fitness and recreation centers. Garrett Ross is a high school teacher, coach and President of the Universal Town Council. Thirteen years ago Allysa was a very overweight teenager who considered herself unlovable until she was asked out by her neighbor, the most popular boy in school. She believed Garrett was the love of her life until she learned that he'd made a bet with his buddies that he could have sex with her, the fattest girl in the school. Ruled by hurt and humiliation, she ignored his pleas for forgiveness and his declarations of love and left Universal immediately after their high school graduation, without telling him she was pregnant with his child.

Today the now size ten Allysa faces her son wanting to meet his father and a need to return to Universal to be the surprise guest at a retirement party for a life-long friend and teacher who has been more of a parent to her than her own mother. Allysa, who has never stopped loving Garrett, isn't sure she can cope with inviting him back into her life, but she promised to introduce her son to his father. Garrett vows to make up for lost time with his son, only to realize that he wants Allysa back in his life too. Allysa’s desire to give a special gift to the teacher leads her to develop a fitness and recreation center in Universal, a town she's avoided since she left. Unable to deny their attraction for each other, Garrett and Allysa soon find their biggest challenge is to forgive each other for the past so they can build a life together with their son.

2nd runner up in the 2008 - Harlequin Superromance^®
Conflict of Interest Contest.

1st - 2000 Melody of Love Contests
Music City Romance Writers'
Short Contemporary Category
(Entered as Promise Me Tomorrow)

3rd - 2000 Heart of the West Writer's Contest
Utah Chapter of Romance Writers of America
Contemporary Category

1st - 2001 Laurie Contest
Smoky Mountain Romance Writers
Long Contemporary Category

1st - 2001 Golden Chance Contest
Central Florida Romance Writers

1st - 2002 Duel on the Delta
River City Romance Writers
Long Contemporary Category

1st - 2002 Heart of the Rockies
Colorado Romance Writers
Long Contemporary Category

3rd - 2001 18th Annual Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers
Orange County (California) Chapter Romance Writers of America
Long Contemporary Category

2nd - 2002 Marlene Awards
Washington Romance Writers
Series Contemporary Romance