***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***Cydney Parrish is the only normal member of a family of extraordinary people. Her father is a bestselling mystery writer who’s on his sixth or so marriage. Her sister is an award winning photographer whose many marriages make the news. Her mother is not only a bestselling novelist but a syndicated newspaper columnist and though her niece hasn’t made the news yet she’s got the kind of looks that will take her places in life. She’s the backbone of her entire family though they don’t acknowledge it, she’s the one that does all the tasks her famous family can’t be bothered to do and she’s the one who cleans up all the messes they leave behind. When the neice who she’s raised Bebe comes home for college to announce she’s marrying the nephew of Cydney’s idol Angue Monroe she’s not sure how to react. On one hand she wants Bebe to be happy on the other Bebe is so young and Cydney isn’t really ready to let go. However she soon jumps to their defense when her idol and her father’s nemesis Angus shows up to stop the wedding before it even starts. Will Angus succeed in stopping the wedding and will Cyndey ever recover from her idol being someone so different from what she’d dreamed? I don’t usually reread contemporary romance, as I’ve said before it’s not really my preferred genre because there’s not usually enough to it to really keep my interest, I mean some of them are enjoyable for a one time quick and entertaining read but trying to read them again for the most part I lose interested within a few chapters. However, this is one contemporary romance that is worth a second perusal and when I came across this in the box while I was sorting through things I knew I had to read again so I could review it. Micheals take hilarious to a whole new level in this book. Yes the set up is a little farfetched, it’s possible but unlikely that you’ll find a family with two bestselling authors one of which is also a syndicated columnist and an award winning photographer important enough to be the subject of news stories herself. And to have one of them randomly marrying the extremely rich nephew of another bestselling author in the same genre is even more unlikely. It could on some freak occurrence happen but the collection of characters gathered here would not normally be in the same family. It’s also unlikely that an author would be the subject of tabloid news or that a photographer would grace the cover of people magazine. Though authors are popular with the book crowd they’re not normally fodder for the racy gossip rags because the portion of our population who are readers isn’t large enough to sell gossip articles about writers. So yes I’ll admit that the set up for this a little farfetched but if you take that into consideration before reading this book you’ll soon forget about all of it as you can’t stop laughing. Anything that can go wrong for this wedding does, and it doesn’t help that the Uncle of the Groom and the Grandfather of the bride pretty much hate each other. The Uncle of the Groom doesn’t want his nephew to get married because he’s not ready to lose his nephew and the sparks that fly between the Aunt of the Bride and the Uncle of the Groom are sensational. They fight as often as they get along. Cydney has been idolizing Angus for ten years and a lot of her anger toward him is learning when she meets him that he’s a jerk. Someone is pretty much always fighting or plotting in this book and poor Angus should get his only private nurse for all the injuries he receives in this book. One of the things I didn’t like about the book was the discussions of Cydney’s writing dream. Her mother basically chastises her constantly about not having written her book even though it’s her mother’s fault as much as anyone’s that she hasn’t finished it. Her entire family expects her to do for them without so much as a thank you and leave her almost no time for herself in order to write. Then they put her down for not having the same achievements as they do. Then Angus tells her she clearly doesn’t have what it takes to be a novelist because she’s been working on the same novel for the last five year while he’s written six books in that time. The conversation really resided with me long after reading this book, and not really in a positive way. It’s pretty much when I realized my own person dreams of writing were never going to be anymore than dreams because I’d never finished anything either. The thing is Angus backtracks on this later constantly encouraging Cydney to pursue her dreams convinced she has what it takes, but at the point at which he changes his mind he’s never read anything she’s written. So the turnaround makes no sense whatsoever. The book varies between a distant third and a close third person. The opening reads almost like a narrator is telling the story before moving in to a closer third person point of view. It’s well written and a laugh from beginning to end. It’s got a nice fast pace though not in an adventurous sort of way but more in a something is always happening and you don’t realize how much you’ve read until you’ve finished the book. Beyond the massive injuries Angus keep receiving there’s also moments like when Bebe received the wedding napkins only to have them said Bebe & Frodo. Since all of her family are readers they can’t stop laughing but poor Aldo doesn’t get the joke. The characters are by far my favorite part of this book. Angus and Cydney are extremely well developed and their lives though different almost parallel each other. Angus raised Aldo from the time he was three because his brother and sister in law died in a plane crash. Cydney help raised Bebe from when she was three and began raising her alone at 14. Both of the leads have made their niece and nephew the center of their worlds. They’re at the point that they don’t know what to do with their lives once this wedding takes place. Neither of them notices these similarities until later in the novel so for a lot of the book they feel completely alone. Cydney is by far the easiest character for me to relate to because she doesn’t know how to say no to her family. Everyone just expects her to clean up their messes and do their menial chores without so much as a thank you and she basically finds that all of her time is devoted to everyone else. She keeps telling herself she loves her life, but it’s almost as if she’s forgotten what selfish happiness is – that joy of doing something not because it’s expected or for some else, but just because you want to. Her dreams, her wants, her needs are all on the backburner and no one else seems to see that but Angus. She feels like no one really sees her and though she won’t admit it to other people, left out of the group. She also has this inner voice which obsesses over things that she often responds to and I completely get that as well. The character has a lot of strengths but her biggest weakness is her family. And while people with normal families may not be able to relate as much to her Cydney is probably the fictional character I can most relate to out of any book I’ve read. No I don’t have the jet setter family but being taken advantage of my family and friends, been there done that to the point that my way of dealing was to just hide. And that inner voice, mines like to obsess over all my stupid mistakes in the past, things that embarrass me. Angus also has that inner voice which is humorous, he’s kind of hidden himself behind a shell so he comes off like a major jerk at first before opening up to be this great guy. Both characters are well developed and likeable. The secondary characters are also extremely well developed from the manipulative Bebe to the flamboyant Fletch Parrish each character is an individual with both positive and negative qualities. Overall this isn’t a contemporary romance to be missed. It’s an excellent read from beginning to end and I feel if you enjoy a good laugh it will appeal to you even when contemporary romance isn’t a genre which would normally appeal. Highly recommended.
This was my first attempt at reading a Lynn Michael's book, and I loved it. I got exactly want I wanted to get out of a book, which is to be left with a happiness over reading it and a gut deep feeling; no matter what the feeling is; over a character. The worst thing in the world is to me, is to walk away from a book once done with it having no feeling at all. I would rather hate a book over being impartial to it, which is the exact opposite of how I felt about this book when I finished that last page at 4 am in the morning. In fact it was that exact moment I wanted to pick up the phone and call my really good friend Nikki and tell her how much I NEEDED her to read this book. I know going into any romance novel that the timeline will be unrealistic, so I never factor that in, that being said I found this story-line to be very relatable. I connected to Cydney Parrish very much, and often times felt that the author has somehow snuck into my life to get her notes on what it is to be invisible. Cydney was complex and strong to those on the outside looking in, she didn’t take crap, and was fiercely loyal. Yet, her family walked all over her and treated like family service provider. I can’t say that I haven’t loved or identified with a heroine before, but I can say that I don’t believe that I have ever rooted so hard for one as I did Cydney Parrish. At first I didn’t know what to make of Angus Munroe, he wasn’t your typical Alpha Male, and in fact some of him seemed almost Omega like. He had weakness and he showed it, sadness and he shared it, and pain that needed medical attention. But, despite all of that he was an Alpha, I would almost say all of those things actually added up to him being the perfect kind of Alpha Male. Putting Cydney and Gus together, was brilliant, he pushed Cydney to be who she should have always been, and she helped bring the life he stopped living back. They had sparks (pheww!!!), and a real honest connection. I loved the fighting, and tempers, and misunderstanding. Now for the rest of the characters, I hate with a passion fueled by a thousand suns Bebe, and no matter what she would of, could of, or did do will change that. The same goes for Gwen the sister, Fletch the father, or Georgette the mother. They were all great characters, which is why I hated them. The only shining light of the inner family characters was Herb. I loved him and thought he was too good for Georgette. The rest of the secondary characters like, the sheriff, Elvin and his sister Louella. You absolutely cannot leave out Maimi, she was great.
What do You think about Mother Of The Bride (2002)?
In the beginning, the book was a little slow, but then you get invested in the story and you want to find out how it goes. I liked the whole cast of funny characters, mostly Cydney, although it made me mad how she let her family walk all over her. Loved the reference of the peashooter vs the uzi. Gus sometimes seemed more of a bumbling clown than a hot hunk, with all the accidents he suffered from Cydney and Bebe, but he shone later on. He starts as a scowling, angry man, and as the book progresses, he changes into a different man, happier and funnier, and you deduct he was sad and lonely at first. Cydney grows from a peashooter to an uzi LOL. There were some hysterical scenes and overall, it was a fun read.f
—Luisa
i absolutely loved this book. it was so funny how the niece punched her fiances uncle... but i didn't understand why she calls her aunt "uncle" and why everyone was so pissed at her over the fake dumbness.
—Amanda
