Lynn Michaels
Mother of the Bride (2002)
Author: Lynn Michaels
Genre: Romance (Contemporary)
Plot Summary:
Bebe was raised by her Aunt Cydney Parrish who she affectionally refers
to as "Uncle Cyd" and Aldo has been raised by his actual Uncle Angus Munroe. Bebe was
abandoned by her mother, Gwen, who had more important things to do as a Pulitzer Prize winning Photojournalist. Aldo's parents died when he was a toddler and his Uncle Gus hit it big with his detective novels when he was still young. Cydney and Bebe come from
a family of the brilliant and famous. Cydney's father also writes detective novels and was furious when Angus Munroe knocked him out of the number one best-seller position. Georgette, Cydney and Gwen's mother, writes a successful etiquette column. Bebe and Aldo are in love and want to get married as soon as her mother can get into town. Aldo has a trust fund that
he's just come of age into and so no one in the book worries about money, but they do worry about prestige and fame and themselves to the exclusion of everyone else. Angus Monroe hates the Parrish patriarch, as do most of the other characters in the book, until he
finally agrees to show up for the wedding. Bebe is insistent that the wedding must take place when her mother is there and in two weeks an amazing wedding is set up in Angus' cabin in the Ozarks, which was originally built to be a Bed and Breakfast. The whole town of Crooked Possum, pop. 162 plus both families get together to make this wedding happen. And in the meanwhile Angus is secretly plotting to destroy the wedding, and Cydney is working overtime to make it happen. And of course Angus and Cydney are both falling in love and fighting each other and love every step of the way. It doesn't help that everyone around Cydney is a successful writer and she wants to be one too. SPOILER: With a little help from Angus we see Cydney at the end signing her successful book, the story of her meeting and falling in love with Angus.
Geographical Setting: Kansas City, Branson, and Crooked Possum, Missouri
Time Period: Contemporary (an uncharacteristically cold November in 2002)
Appeal Characteristics:
This tale moves at fast clip and the light and humourous tone brings the story to life. Much
of the humor is physical, a tiny 19 year old girl floors a grown man with one punch and that same man has a couple of the unluckiest days for bruises in his life when he meets her whole family. Prat falls and written down site gags dominate! The specifics of the Midwestern setting and contemporary time period will attract readers from "the flyover states" who will recognize themselves in the place and the people. The characterization depth is varied and fun. The Munroe family is mostly gone, but Angus remembers them fondly and with a touching sentimentality for a reclusive writer of detective novels. The Parrish family characters are flawed, but in a sympathetic way. They could be viewed as venomously horrible selfish people, but the way Michaels portrays them highlights the complications of families. There are no black and white enemies in the book. Even Gwen, who should be repugnant in her choice to dump her child off on her mother and sister is shown to really only have the best motivations at heart. And Bebe's "sweet and cute but stupid" act is only convincing to Aldo and everyone else figures out that she is in fact intelligent, and even somewhat manipulative. The relationship between Gus and Cyd is told from both of their points of view so even though they don't know how the other one feels, the reader is always kept apprised. Considering the way they start off, with Angus walking in on Cydney having a conversation with an imaginary Gus to all the fan photos she's collected of him, it seems that this relationship faces insurmountable odds from the get go. But the readers get their happy ending. Some of the best characters are the few of the 100+ residents of Crooked Possum we actually get to meet.
Read-alikes: Jennifer Cruisie's books in general have the same sort of light and humorous tone and the same complicated family relationships. Their pacing is extremely comparable to Michael's work. Faking It is the most fitting read-alike. When Davy Dempsey and Tilda Goodnight meet while hiding in the closet during two different theft capers in the same house, all sexy hell breaks loose. Jamie Denton's The Rules of Engagement is another good suggestion. When successful and career driven attorney Jill Cassidy meets the sexy client of her dreams, Morgan Price, she does the most natural thing in the world, she asks him to be her fiancé. For show. So she doesn't have to explain to her family that she'd been lying to them for the past year. For the fans of the family and humorous aspects of Mother of the Bride but want something a bit more realistic this book would be a perfect fit. Consider also Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Match Me If You Can. This light-hearted fast-paced book again chronicles the story of a single woman struggling to shine in a family of overachievers. Millie Criswell's No Strings Attached would be a good choice, too. Those who were drawn into Cydney's plight as an aspiring author will love the parallels with this humorous tale of a single woman in New York who just wants to publish her first novel, and accidentally falls for her best friend. Finally, Sherryl Woods' Ask Anyone concerns a protagonist named Jenna Kennedy, who is trying to buy out restaurateur Bobby Spencer for water front development. The fun way she goes about capturing his attention and the characters of Trinity Harbor will make readers want to return to this place for further stories, much like Michael's town and residents of "Crooked Possum."
Red Flags: Some sex, some language, and a whole lot of annoying self-pity on the part
of the lead character.
|top|
|
