Review: "There Goes the Bride" by Holly McQueen

Polly Atkins, a Londoner living in New York City, is headed home so that she can plan her wedding to the world's most perfect fiance. He's smart, handsome and patient, he loves Polly unconditionally, and he's even an honest-to-goodness doctor! Polly's sister Bella can't wait to start planning the wedding. Always the more organized and disciplined sister, she knows that Polly will need her to pull this off. Plus, if Bella is busy with the wedding she won't need to deal with the fact that her boyfriend is good-for-nothing and that her dreams of having a baby are rapidly slipping away.

Polly's best friend, Grace, will fight Bella for the right to plan the wedding if need be. Bored and dissatisfied with her life as a wife, mother, and glorified housekeeper, Grace can't help but feel that a distraction is just what she needs. She's more than eager for her best friend to return home and for the planning to begin!

However when Polly arrives home, all is not well. She calls off the wedding without explanation and Bella and Grace bury their years-old rivalry long enough to try to get Polly and fiance Dev back together. As they plot they discover that changes need to be made in their own lives before they can each achieve a happily-ever-after.

I'm definitely a Holly McQueen fan- I love her funny and fabulous women's fiction and all of the characters that she makes come to life! I was excited to read There Goes the Bride- a stand-alone book about three women trying to find out what will truly make them happy. I was a little surprised that the story is told from the point of view of both Bella (the bride's sister) and Grace (the bride's best friend) but that the bride never has the story told from her point of view. In fact the book isn't even that focused on Polly and her various issues but rather on Bella and Grace and the things that they needed to fix in their own lives. While this format worked for me, I did feel a little thrown off when I realized that the story didn't have as much to do with the bride herself as I once thought.

There Goes the Bride was well-written and engaging- I found myself picking it up and getting lost in the pages. The book was funny, I rooted for each of the main characters because they were all very lovable, and while the conclusion was predicable it was also perfectly enjoyable. This is another great read by established author Holly McQueen and it is one that I will not hesitate to recommend. My thanks to the publisher for providing me with this review copy.