Bridezilla | Seattle Book Mama

It’s a good sign when I finish reading a book, and I’m smiling. Alison Espach’s new novel, The Wedding People, not only left me smiling at the end; it made me laugh out loud almost from the get-go, and it will do the same for you.

My thanks go to NetGalley, Henry Holt, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

I’m not usually fond of romances, but a friend mentioned the premise of this one, and I couldn’t resist. In a nutshell: Phoebe, the protagonist, worn down by the pandemic and devastated when her husband leaves her, heads off to the posh hotel where they’d intended to spend their vacation. She takes no luggage or even her phone, because she plans to kill herself once she’s inside that lovely place.

Upon arrival, it’s clear that a mistake has been made. The entire hotel has been reserved for a wedding. But Phoebe’s room hasn’t been double booked, and so she is allowed, with apologies, to proceed to her room. However, the bride—wealthy, entitled, Bridezilla—learns of Phoebe’s presence, goes to her room, and orders her to leave. As they argue, Phoebe discloses her reason for coming, and assures her that she’ll be gone—so to speak—by the time the wedding takes place. But Lila, our bride, is having none of it. How dare Phoebe spoil her wedding! Absolutely not. She isn’t going to have guests gathering just as a corpse is being wheeled out to the morgue, right through the lobby! Phoebe must change her plans.

I won’t share any further developments, but I will tell you this: Espach can write.

Long ago, I decided that five star reviews should not be reserved for the rare gem bound to become a timeless classic. I give five stars to any novel that makes me unusually happy, and that represents the best being published within its genre. This book is one of those.

Helen Laser is the voice actor narrating the audio version, and she makes it even funnier. If you are strictly a visual reader, that’s fine, but if you like both formats, go with the audio this time, or use the audio and print versions together, which is what I did.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy a good romance, a good laugh, or both.

The wedding guest is dead, slumped on the toilet, strangled. Is she someone invited by the bride’s family, or the groom’s? Neither one. Total stranger…or so they say. The thirty-fourth book in the Alex Delaware series comes out tomorrow, February 5, 2019. I read it free and early thanks to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine.

Kellerman is a child psychiatrist, and his knowledge and experience dealing with children and their families provides him with a rare ability to invent quirky but believable characters. Here we find a wedding reception unfolding in a seedy building that used to be a strip club, and this provides the world’s tackiest wedding theme. All the women—including the bride—are supposed to dress to look “hot.” The groom’s family, a more conservative, scholarly bunch, are less than delighted, but they bear it stoically, till someone finds a dead guest in the loo. The bride—already turned bridezilla–is just undone. How could someone ruin her big day like this? How thoughtless. They should have killed that woman somewhere else. Or maybe on a different day.

This series never fails to delight me. Once again, Detective Milo Sturgis gets the call; once again, his best pal Alex is tapped to analyze a young guest, and from there he becomes further involved in the case.

There have been other books in the series that pushed this improbable situation too far, with Alex the doctor donning a Kevlar vest to go chase and apprehend bad guys with Milo. This time I find Alex’s involvement much more believable. On the one hand, he still does things that doctors advising cops never do, but limiting Alex’s participation to interviews held either in his office or at the police station wouldn’t make for good fiction. All we want is to believe. Kellerman helps us along by creating a strong friendship bond that makes Milo and Alex want to work together, and that’s coupled with Milo’s unpopularity among his colleagues due to the fact that he’s gay. Nobody else wants to get in the car and go places with Milo, and Alex does; and after all, the police do employ him, so it’s not like some random civilian is partnered with Milo. I thought this was finessed nicely this time around.

Kellerman always writes strong dialogue that includes some very funny bits here and there, and the pages turn rapidly. It’s a lot of fun to read, and if I hadn’t been able to get the galley for this one, I’d have hunted it down later at the library rather than miss out.

Highly recommended for fans of the genre.