This post contains affiliate links. In addition, I was provided with a free copy of the book in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.
Title: The Wedding Ringer
Author: Kerry Rea
Sub-genre: Contemporary (also, this will probably be marketed as romance, but it’s definitely leaning more women’s fiction)
Release Date: November 9, 2021
Not going to lie, sometimes books centered around weddings and wedding planning can be tough for me to read given that it’s my actual job. But since Kerry is a fellow Pitch Wars alum, and because I know how amazing she is, I went into this one with high hopes and they were totally met.
Willa is riding the hot mess express after finding her fiance and best friend in bed together just a few weeks before her wedding. Now she is single, career-less, and living with her sister and her wife and their three kids. Willa used to write a popular blog in addition to her job as a lifestyle reporter, but since her breakup, she hasn’t been able to get anything down on the page. To scrape some money together, she’s working for her sister’s event planning company as a princess for kids’ parties, and let’s just say it’s not going well. She desperately wants to earn enough money to be able to relocate so she doesn’t have to live in the same city as her exes–both fiance and best friend–but that’s not really happening with her current job. So when she runs into (almost literally) Maisie, she’s feeling more than a little desperate. Maisie is desperate in her own way–for some friends. She’s planning her wedding and needs to find a bridesmaid, but Maisie is a bit of a loner who has a lot of trouble opening up to people and she’s short on options. She offers to pay Willa to be a bridesmaid, and even though Willa wants nothing less than to be around weddings after her own fiasco, she needs the money. As Willa and Maisie spend more time together, they begin to develop a real friendship, but both of them are still dealing with some emotional issues from their pasts and holding a lot of things in. Willa also has trouble opening up to groomsman Liam, even though the two seem to continually find themselves in each other’s paths. There’s lots of speedbumps along the way, but each character has to deal with their issues and find a way to open up, and luckily, they do and all live happily ever after and all that jazz.
So first and foremost, I was completely captured by the voice in this book, basically from the very first page. Willa immediately grabbed me with her bonkers job situations and broken heart and writer’s block (hello relatable). I think one of my favorite things about the story was how deeply we dove into Willa’s heartbreak, not just from the betrayal of her fiance, but the betrayal of her best friend. Friend breakups can be just as hard, if not harder, than relationship breakups, and I loved how Kerry explored that. My heart broke for Willa on more than one occasion because losing a friend is just the worst. I also loved seeing Maisie and Willa come together and form a true friendship. It can be so hard to make friends as adults and I really enjoyed watching the two of them take their relationship from a business deal to something real and meaningful. And yes there was a cute love story in this book too, but for me, it was all about the connection between Maisie and Willa and watching them find each other and find themselves. If you need some laughs and some girl bonding and powerful female friendships, this one is for you!
Overall Rating: 5 stars