A Wedding To Die For

Weddingville, Book #1

Adrianne Lee

ISBN # 9781455574179

Author’s Website: http://www.adriannelee.com

 

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer jerjen

 

Review:

Daryl Anne Blessing and her best friend Meg have returned to Weddingville for the wedding of Meg and her actor boyfriend.  Meg and her fiance, Peter, want to keep the wedding quiet and out of the eyes of the paparazzi.  What better place than Meg’s hometown, where everything is weddings, twenty four/seven.  What could possibly go wrong?

Daryl Anne is the maid of honor and her main job is to keep the bride-to-be calm.  This job proves to be impossible to do.  Meg’s long lost mother has returned to Weddingville to reconnect with her daughter and to attend the wedding.  Many people are not happy seeing her there, including Meg’s dad and Daryl Anne’s mother.  Meg’s old boyfriend (the love of her life) is still living in Weddingville, a member of the police force.  He wants Meg back, and he is not being quiet about that fact.    Daryl Anne herself is not happy seeing Tanya, Meg’s mother, because she knows how badly Meg was hurt when her mother abandoned her.  How is Daryl Anne supposed to keep Meg calm and make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch?  And when a dead body washes ashore during the ceremony, there is no way to keep the wedding perfect in every way.

The characters are well developed, well rounded and three dimensional.  Daryl Anne and Meg seem so real and are the type of friends that everyone deserves to have in their life.  They demonstrate the qualities that all friends should possess and they are willing to do anything for each other, including putting themselves in harm’s way.  I feel like I really got to know them and found myself really liking them.  The secondary characters are also very realistic and added a lot to the story.   Even the people that you hate, like Tanya and Peter, bring out strong emotions, and are important to the story.

The writing style flows smoothly and the book is an easy read. At times I found myself laughing out loud at the sarcastic humor displayed, especially by Daryl Anne.   Other times I found myself worried about what would happen to everyone.  From the very first page, I was pulled into the book and dragged along until the very end.  The mystery started on page one and continued to build to a very satisfying conclusion.  There are many suspects to consider and twists and turns along the way to make identifying the murderer difficult.  I did not figure it out until it was revealed at the end, but that is alright.

The writer is very talented and is very descriptive with the written word.  I could feel the home town closeness, where everyone knows everyone’s business.  And where everyone wants the latest dirt and gossip.  I experienced the emotions felt by Darryl Anne and Meg, the sorrow and the happiness and the confusion.  I cannot decide what I liked the most about the book, the characters or the mystery.  I think I enjoyed them equally.   I found myself wanting to read as fast as I could to see what would happen, while at the same time, wanting to read it very slowly because I did not want it to end.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well-plotted mystery suspense.  To me this book felt like a cozy: clean, small town setting, best friends with a murder to solve with well developed characters.  So if you enjoy a cozy or a mystery suspense, this book is for you.  I am hoping that this is a start of a new series, I want to spend more time with Daryl Anne and Meg and the rest of their family and friends.  If I could, I would give this book more than five stars, I enjoyed it that much.