The Wedding People by Alison Espach

 

Phoebe Stone's life has fallen apart.  Before the Covid pandemic, she had a happy marriage with Matt, a job she loved and the hope of having a family.  Afterwards, not so much.  Matt leaves Phoebe for her best friend after Phoebe and Matt realize that one of them is infertile and they won't be having a family.  Worse, they both work as professors where Phoebe does so she will be running into them daily.  Then to top everything off, her cat who loved her regardless of what she did dies.

Phoebe goes to work for the first day of classes and snaps.  She leaves the university and ends up at the luxurious Cornwall Hotel where she plans to take all of her cat's pain pills, have a great meal and die in her sleep.  But Lila isn't having that.  Lila thought she had reserved the entire hotel for a week as it's her wedding week.  She isn't happy to see Phoebe there and when she hears what Phoebe is planning, she is outraged.  How could Phoebe ruin her wedding?  Who does she think she is?

But Phoebe's plans don't work out.  She can't have a great meal because the kitchen isn't doing room service because of the wedding festivities.  The cat pain killers don't seem to do much and Phoebe wakes up the next morning.  When Lila storms into her room, they start to talk and soon Lila has decided that Phoebe should stay for the week as she is the only person who is indifferent to everyone and who will tell Lila the truth about things.

As the week goes on, Phoebe becomes attached to the people in the wedding.  There's Jim who thought he was taking the groom along as a wingman the day Lila and the groom, Gary, met and fell in love.  There's Lila's mother who has a huge nude portrait of herself commissioned and which Lila gives to Gary.  There's Gary's sister who dislikes Lila and is having an affair.  There's Gary's preteen daughter, Juice, who really dislikes Lila and is suspicious she is trying to replace Juice's mother who dies.  Then there is Gary who Phoebe feels an instant attraction to and it's clear as the week goes on that the attraction is returned.  What will happen?

This is my first Alison Espach book but it definitely won't be my last.  I expected a frothy romance but instead there is a gradual realization by Phoebe what was wrong with her life before and how to fix it going forward.  The characters are well drawn and the reader will be pulled into the plot as the week of the wedding goes forward.  This book is recommended for readers of women's and romance fiction.