From the publisher:
A twisty, tender and wise look at how secrets can transform the powerful—and sometimes problematic—bond between mothers and daughters, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery.
When Shannon gets engaged, her beloved mom, Cindy, is the first person she wants to tell—and the last. Cindy’s engaged, too, and has already hinted at a double wedding. The image of a synchronized bouquet toss with her mom fills Shannon with horror. She’ll keep her engagement a secret until Cindy’s I-dos are done.
Victoria has never been proper enough for her mother, Ava, so she stopped trying. She lives on her own terms and amuses herself by pushing Ava’s buttons. Ava loves but doesn’t understand her stuntwoman daughter. When a movie-set mishap brings Victoria home, Ava longs to finally connect.
Chance brings the four women together at a wedding venue, where a shocking secret comes tumbling out. Twenty-four years ago, desperate teenager Cindy chose wealthy Ava to adopt her baby—then changed her mind at the very last second. The loss rocked Ava’s world, leaving her unable to open her heart to the daughter she did adopt, Victoria. As Shannon and Victoria deal with the fallout from the decisions their mothers made, they wrestle with whether who they are is different than who they might have become.
Cindy and her daughter Shannon share a close, loving bond. Cindy raised Shannon on her own and is now happily engaged, while Shannon is in a long-term relationship—prompting Cindy to joke about having a joint wedding. So when Shannon’s boyfriend finally proposes, she’s ecstatic but hesitant to tell her mom. She’s pretty sure Cindy wasn’t joking about the dual ceremony, and that’s the last thing she wants. Cindy, meanwhile, is in a good place after years of struggling as a single mother.
Ava and her daughter, Victoria, couldn’t be more different. Their relationship is tense and distant, with Victoria often openly hostile and Ava constantly feeling like she can’t do anything right. Though they come from wealth—Victoria’s family has money—their emotional connection is lacking. Victoria works as a stuntwoman, but when she’s injured on the job, she reluctantly returns home.
The two mother-daughter pairs meet up at a potential wedding venue, where we learn that Cindy and Ava share a complicated history. When Cindy became pregnant as a teenage, unmarried woman, she planned to give her baby up for adoption. She chose Ava, and the two grew close throughout the pregnancy. But at the last moment, Cindy changed her mind, leaving Ava heartbroken. Soon after, a maid in Ava’s household became pregnant and offered her baby to Ava, but even that couldn’t fill the void or repair the emotional fallout. Ava and Victoria’s strained relationship carries echoes of that loss.
As the women begin spending more time together, long-buried secrets resurface, and emotions run high. Victoria, especially, struggles with jealousy toward Shannon. While everything ultimately resolves, the journey is rocky—filled with mother-daughter blowups, wedding chaos, and unresolved pain. I usually adore Mallery’s books, but this one landed as just an okay read for me.
12/2025 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
OTHERWISE ENGAGED by Susan Mallery. MIRA. (November 4, 2025). ISBN: 978-0778387268. 368p.
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