From the publisher:
Matrimony meets mayhem in a modern British romcom about a young woman charged with pulling off the biggest aristocratic wedding of the year––and the misadventures that ensue.
Sophie Breeze is a brilliant bridesmaid. So brilliant, in fact, that she’s made it her full-time job.
As a professional bridesmaid, Sophie is hired by London brides to be their right-hand woman, posing as a friend but working behind the scenes to help plan the perfect wedding and ensure their big day goes off without a hitch. When she’s hired by Lady Victoria Swann––a former model and “It Girl” of 1970’s London; now the Marchioness of Meade––for the society wedding of the year, it should be a chance for Sophie to prove just how talented she is.
Of course, it’s not ideal that the bride, Lady Victoria’s daughter, Cordelia, is an absolute diva and determined to make Sophie’s life a nightmare. It’s also a bit inconvenient that Sophie finds herself drawn to Cordelia’s posh older brother, who is absolutely off limits. But when a rival society wedding is announced for the very same day, things start to get…well, complicated.
Can Sophie pull off the biggest challenge of her career––execute a high-profile gala for four hundred and fifty guests in record time, win over a reluctant bride, and catch the eye of handsome Lord Swann––all while keeping her true identity a secret, and her dignity intact?
Heartwarming and hilarious, Katy Birchall’s The Secret Bridesmaid celebrates the joys (and foibles) of weddings, the nuances of female friendship, and the redeeming power of love in its many unexpected forms.
If you are looking to escape for a few hours and you like to laugh out loud while you’re reading, this is your book! It certainly was mine.
So a professional bridesmaid is basically a laid back wedding planner, perfect for brides who want to keep control of the wedding but may need some help along the way. I don’t know if this is a real thing, but Birchall had me believing. It was a little harder to believe that a British aristocrat planning a fairly large wedding wouldn’t just go ahead with a wedding planner, but the bridezilla at the center of the wedding makes that call. Her mother, on the other hand, hires Sophie despite her daughter’s resistance (to put it mildly.)
Cordelia is the bridezilla, or as Sophie’s friend refers to her at Miranda Priestly. (You know who that is, yes?) Cordelia is determined to force her hired bridesmaid to quit, and goes to great lengths to make her point. But Sophie considers herself a professional, and with her mother’s occasional encouragement, she is bound to make Cordelia see the light, if she doesn’t get fired first.
There are other brides in the roster and they add some additional comic relief – the bride who wants all her bridesmaids to be redheads so her brunette hair will stand out, the bride who wants a Star Wars themed wedding, replete with her hired bridesmaid dressed as Chewbacca, and so forth. But Cordelia – she is the master of mean which makes for a very fun read. Her good looking brother is Sophie’s romantic interest, but he takes a back seat to everything else going on in her life.
This book was pure escapism, funny as hell with a sweet romance. I loved it!
5/2021 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
THE SECRET BRIDESMAID by Katy Birchall. St. Martin’s Griffin (May 4, 2021). ISBN: 978-1250795793. 400 pages.
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 