Review: Piece of Cake

Piece of Cake by Mary Hollis Huddleston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As the middle daughter to wealthy successful Dallas socialites, Claire Sommers has always had to compete for her parents' affections and approbation. Her elder sister Evelyn was always the best at everything she did and now runs three thriving businesses, oh and she and her husband are expecting their first child. Her younger sister Lucille is a lawyer, universally adored, and engaged to a guy the family all loves. A few years ago, in an attempt to please her parents and get ahead in the wedding planning company she was working for at the time, Claire did something underhand that not only cost her her job, but also any sniff of her Trust Fund before the age of forty.

Unable to bear the gossip and her family's disappointment, Claire has moved to Nashville where she works on a bridal magazine called Piece of Cake. Having worked her way up, Claire is now a journalist on the magazine but the print world is in decline and the magazine is facing a digital-only future unless it can find new revenue streams or increase subscriptions. The editor has decided to run with one of Claire's ideas, to create a docuseries featuring some of the most lavish weddings, but has brought in a social media content creator from New York called Dominic Gravino who has a hugely successful socials account called The Brides' Man to produce the series.

Whilst initially hostile, Claire and Dom soon develop a good working relationship, even if it is often bonding over the ridiculous extravagance of some of the weddings, and it could be more ... but Dom is only in Nashville as a consultant for a few months to see whether the docuseries could generate enough interest to keep Piece of Cake afloat.

I liked this but I didn't love it. Reading the blurb at the end the writers are an events planner and a journalist and I think it shows, there's a lot about the different events, the décor, the flowers, the seating arrangements etc and the burgeoning romance between Dom and Claire gets lost in the detail. Also Claire's heinous crime is hinted at for so long that when it is finally revealed it feels like a bit of an anti-climax (or maybe it is a big deal in the wedding planning world but not so much for me).

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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