Publishers Weekly
Hilderbrand's latest (after Summerland) is the perfect beach read—down to its Nantucket setting. The Carmichaels and Grahams arrive on the island for the wedding of golden girl Jenna Carmichael to eth-ical banker Stuart Graham. Jenna's mother Beth, before dying seven years ago, prepared a wedding notebook, a guide that approaches sanctity to Jenna, her cynical older sister, Margot, and Douglas, the still-grieving and unhappily re-married Carmichael patriarch. While the notebook gives solace to these three, it also threatens to break apart Douglas's second marriage. As for the groom, his parents Ann and Jim divorced two decades earlier only to happily remarry, but his mother can't resist tempting fate. She invites Helen, the woman her husband left her for back then, to the wedding, and her behav-ior threatens everyone's happiness. The narrative unfolds through Margot, Doug, and Ann's perspec-tives and is aided by entries from Beth's notebook and "outtakes" from family and friends that read like unusually personal wedding video confessionals. The author's straightforward style pulls the reader into the minds of her characters, and all the secrets and sorrows that create the universal messi-ness of major family events. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (June 25)
Library Journal
Ah, the wedding day. A romantic time that celebrates the union of two individuals and the joining of two families. What could be better, right? Wrong! The Jennifer Carmichael/Stuart Graham wedding is full of dysfunction, stress, and the reopening of old wounds, one of which threatens to derail the entire weekend. If that isn't enough pressure, the inclusion of "The Notebook," a missive of instructions from the bride's deceased mother, looms over everyone involved. VERDICT Hilderbrand's latest (after Summerland) blends humor with family drama in a style similar to the novels of Jane Green and Emily Giffin. The inclusion of multiple points of view from characters of varying ages and a twist on what seems at first to be a predictable plot point gives this title broad appeal to both young and older women. Another summer delight for fans of women's fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 11/30/12.]—Amber McKee, Cumberland Univ. Lib., Lebanon, TN
Kirkus Reviews
Hilderbrand's surprisingly original take on the wedding disaster novel. A wedding weekend is a time-honored literary pretext for exploring family dysfunction, and Hilderbrand's version combines gentle irony with astute observation. The Carmichael family has vacationed at their rambling summer abode on Nantucket Island for almost a century. Now, the house will be the site of high-profile divorce attorney Doug Carmichael's youngest daughter Jenna's nuptials. "The Notebook," left by Jenna's mother, Beth, who died of cancer six years ago, has planned the wedding down to the last detail. The weekend, which will include a rehearsal dinner, Saturday ceremony and reception, and Sunday brunch, has drawn the Carmichaels and their entourage into the ideal arena for emotional fireworks. Doug's 40-year-old daughter, executive recruiter Margot, hopelessly enamored with her father's rakish older law partner, Edge (one of many nicknames right out of the preppy handbook), regrets her one ethical lapse at her lover's behest, involving a more age-appropriate romantic prospect, Griff. Doug, who married second wife Pauline too soon after Beth's passing, now contemplates divorce. Pauline, sensing Doug's withdrawal, hopes that her daughter Rhonda's service as a bridesmaid will finally earn her genuine entry into the Carmichael clan. Ann, the groom's mother, a consummate politician, has miscalculated the personal toll of asking statuesque blonde Helen, her husband's former mistress and mother of his love child, Chance, to the wedding. Crises small and large loom: Edge, though not married, refuses to make his and Margot's relationship public; a historic tree named Alfie must be pruned to accommodate the wedding tent; Chance suffers a severe allergic reaction to mussels; Doug's son Nick appears to be involved with a married bridesmaid. The populous cast makes establishing a coherent throughline difficult, and the first 200 pages are mainly prologue. But Hilderbrand's casually tossed-off zingers, and her gift for eliciting sympathy for even the most insufferable of her characters, keep the pages turning until the disaster unfolds in earnest. A wedding readers won't be able to resist crashing.
