When the Church Burns Down, Cancel the Wedding: Adventures from the Other Half of Single

by Sara E. Braca

Overview

Hilarious, inspiring, and thoroughly authentic, Sara E. Braca's debut memoir takes readers along on her post-divorce adventures around the world, sharing a life lived fully - if untraditionally - and proving that joy can always be found in unexpected places.

When the church burned down a week before her wedding, Sara Braca somehow did not perceive this as an omen. Six years after marrying (in a different church), an errant call from 1-800-Flowers alerted her to her then-husband's affair. And as one unhappy chapter ended, she found herself writing a very different, much happier story.

An aspiring globe-trotter, Braca realized this was her opportunity to see the world. Solo travel became her first step to finding happiness, strength, and peace in her new life. From disastrous celebrity encounters to getting naked with colleagues at the Dead Sea to being adopted by a family of Greek hoteliers, Braca blends the everyday and the outrageous as she learns that there's no one-size-fits-all model for a happy life. 

When the Church Burns Down, Cancel the Wedding introduces a vibrant new voice, chronicling the triumphs, tragedies, and unexpected joys of modern solo living, and offers lessons in creating a unique and satisfying happily-ever-after of one's own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798885048323
Publisher:	New Degree Press
Publication date:	10/11/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
File size:	2 MB

Editorial Reviews

2022-12-30
Debut author Braca offers a paean to the single life.

The author—a marketing executive and yoga instructor in Tuscany—presents an engaging set of stories about reclaiming her life after her divorce following six years of marriage. The disruption of her Connecticut wedding by a church fire, she writes, seemed to be a sign that she shouldn’t see marriage as everything in life. Indeed, throughout this book, Braca narrates the ways she learned to remake herself and embrace the possibility of a happy, single existence that didn’t exclude meaningful relationships. In the process, she learned how to push back against unwanted questions of why she was “still” single. A common theme of this essay collection is the idea of rediscovering oneself; it includes accounts of travel and a tribute to losing weight. She includes a humorous anecdote about her cat being too good of a mouser and another about how to own a BMW and not be irritating (“Growing up, my mother always told me that BMW drivers were assholes”). The most poignant chapters, though, are about her search for and embrace of her Italian roots, which led to her current living situation. This book shines most brightly in its travel tales, some of which illustrate the intersection of business and pleasure, including a heartfelt account of a trip to Israel. Braca further expands on her views on what one should expect from life in a story about a European river cruise that turned out to be mainly for seniors, during which she learned a lesson about being young at heart. Other noteworthy vignettes recount visits to Iceland before and after its popularization as a tourist destination and finding community on the Greek island of Santorini. Each shows how travel has expanded her world and conveys her joy at having done so.

A delightful travelogue and memoir.

Kirkus Reviews