A Nantucket Wedding
Author: Nancy Thayer
Reviewer: Nima
Rating: B-
What I’m Talking About:
A Nantucket Wedding is a story about the family drama that always surrounds large family events like a wedding. The wedding serves to focus a spotlight on the relationships of key characters.You’d think a book about a wedding would be a romance. It is romantic, but not a romance. Everyone in this story is already in an established relationship, some of them rocky. What this book is, is women’s fiction. I keep trying it and I continue to be disappointed. This one is better than some I’ve read, there isn’t as much whining and over-thinking every nuance of anything anyone ever said. Unfortunately, drama aside, there isn’t much in the way of plot. It’s slice of summer life.
Thayer specializes in the island of Nantucket. That part she does really well. I felt the sun on my face and the sand under my feet. I yearned to get in the car and spend the day at the beach. I was transported back to my summers of family reunions where we rented a house and everyone slept on every surface, we ate too much, played board games on rainy days, and performed ritual sunblock application. Little tip: Put a bucket of baby powder by the door to take the sand off feet before entering the house. It does a better job than water. Then you can rinse the powder. But I digress…
A Nantucket Wedding is billed as a stand-alone, but it didn’t leave me with a satisfying ending. A stand alone should wrap up all it’s threads in a nice bow. The resolution of at least one storyline wasn’t happily-for-now, it was just for-now. It was the storyline that probably had to most drama and feeling to it so to have it just sitting there largely unresolved at the end was awkward.
My Rating: B- Liked It, but I had a few small issues
About the Book:
A few years after losing her beloved husband, Alison is doing something she never thought she would do again: getting married. While placing the finishing touches on her summer nuptials, Alison is anxious to introduce her fiancé, David, to her grown daughters: Felicity, a worried married mother of two, and Jane, also married but focused on her career. The sisters have a somewhat distant relationship and Alison hopes that the wedding and the weeks leading up to the ceremony will give the siblings a chance to reconnect, as well as meet and get to know David’s grown children.
As the summer progresses, it is anything but smooth sailing. Felicity stumbles upon a terrible secret that could shatter her carefully cultivated world. Jane finds herself under the spell of her soon-to-be stepbrother, Ethan, who is as charming as he is mysterious. And even Alison is surprised (and slightly alarmed) by her new blended family. Revelations, intrigue, resentments—as the Big Day approaches, will the promise of bliss be a bust?
Against the gorgeous backdrop of the sunswept island of Nantucket, Nancy Thayer sets the stage for a walk down the aisle no one will ever forget.
Release Date: April 3, 2018
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Format(s): hardcover (320 pages), e-book, audiobook
Book Source: Publisher/NetGalley
Purchase Info:
Amazon