The Wedding that Changed Everything by Jennifer JoyceMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Three and a half stars.
Emily Atkinson is dragged to her best friend Alice's big sister Carolyn's wedding as her plus one. Emily and Alice are total opposites, Alice is a true romantic whereas Emily's mother's revolving door of men after her father left has made Emily cynical about men and relationships. Her mother's death two years ago hurt Emily irreparably, she dumped her long-term boyfriend and has refused to enter into any more relationships. Since then Alice has been forcing her to date guys but Emily finds a reason to dump every one of them after only one or two dates - although to be fair most of the reasons seemed pretty good to me!
Carolyn's wedding is a week-long affair at Durban Castle, which is owned by an uncle and where Alice and Carolyn spent many glorious holidays as children with their cousin Archie and Tom, the gardener's son. Until it all went wrong. Now Alice is estranged from her absentee father, loathes her step-mother Francelia, and is hiding her boyfriend Kevin from all of them.
Alice is determined that Emily will find her Prince Charming at the wedding and extracts a promise that Emily will seriously consider all the single male guests, in return if she doesn't find anyone Alice will stop forcing her to go on dates when they get home.
Unfortunately Alice's rose coloured spectacles are so thick that she couldn't identify a 'normal' guy if she tried and Emily is forced to fend off married lechers, cravat-wearing art bores and men who wear shoes without socks. But Alice's cousin Archie is handsome and charming, if a little over-eager, it wouldn't hurt to pretend she likes him, would it? The one man she can't stand is Tom. Now the gardener at the castle, his grumpy demeanour and refusal to reconnect to his childhood friends irritates Emily beyond reason. AND he keeps rescuing her when she gets lost in the grounds. Odious, sneering man.
But as the group activities organised by Carolyn, including karaoke, lawn games, treasure hunt and quiz take place Emily discovers things are not always as they seem, maybe she can tell someone about her miserable childhood and maybe, just maybe, she could fall in love?
This was a slow burner for me. Alice fell into that category of friends that I cannot stand, the clueless friend who thinks they know best but then set you up with the dregs of society, men who have no personality, no manners, no social skills. Also Emily's inability to find her way anywhere and constantly getting lost was also a bit tiresome. But then some of the events of the past that led to the childhood friendships falling apart start to emerge and the plot got interesting. By the end I was sorry it had ended!
Overall, an enjoyable romance set in the English countryside at a fancy Castle wedding.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
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