Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens

Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens
Buy Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Women's Fiction
Reviewer: Jo Heffer
Summary: Julie and Mags run their wedding planning company, Dream Weddings. They are very successful, but are looking forward to their biggest challenge yet - planning the wedding of an ageing rock star and his French model fiance. Everything would be fine if it were not for their complicated personal lives and the bizarre demands of the happy couple. Is it possible for the wedding to go off without a hitch or is that asking just a little too much?
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 304	Date: April 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 978-0141028576
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Revenge of the Wedding Planner is the first book I have read by Sharon Owens, a relatively new Irish writer, and it turned out to be a light and enjoyable read, although I have to admit I had some difficulty getting into it at first. The story is told by Mags, who works at Dream Weddings with her boss Julie. Mags is a very amiable character who has a happy but somewhat complicated family life. She is extremely content with her husband Bill with whom they have four almost grown up children who cause her a certain amount of angst, particularly her eldest son Alexander who announces that his anorexic girlfriend Emma is pregnant. The person who causes her the most problems though is her boss Julie who decides to run off and have a fling with a toy boy but expects Mags to be the one to break the news to her fiance Gary!

With all of this turmoil in her private life, planning other people's weddings should be a doddle! It is until her latest clients, an ageing rock star and his chic French model girlfriend, announce what they want for their wedding. This includes all the guests to be dressed as rock chicks or vampires, the ceremony to be conducted by a druid and bats to be released from the belfry as soon as the service is over. The two women set about arranging all of this but as you can imagine this is going to be one wedding which has little chance of running smoothly.

Mags tells the story from her own point of view and it is written in a very chatty, informal way almost like a diary. It is also written as though she is talking directly to you, the reader and taking you into her confidence about all the things that trouble her. Because of this, the story does tend to meander at times with Mags going off at various tangents along the way. I found this way of writing quite annoying and distracting at first, but once I became more involved in the story it really did not bother me that much at all.

I liked the character of Mags very much although I sometimes felt quite cross with her as she tried to be all things to all people, something which also frustrates Bill, her husband, greatly. However, the marriage of Mags and Bill is one of the things I really liked in this story. For a couple who had been married over twenty years it was still as strong and warm as it had been in their very first days and that I found quite inspiring. It also seemed in direct contrast to a lot of the weddings Mags and Julie were planning, which just seemed to be all about the frills and trimmings. The book did seem to throw a somewhat cynical view on these types of weddings.

Most of the other characters are not very likeable at all though. They all seem to have flaws to their characters and are only too happy for Mags to solve their problems for them. Because of this, I didn't find myself feeling sympathetic towards Julie, Gary, Alexander and any of the others who turn up in this novel. Having said that though, these dysfunctional characters do contribute towards Mags being a very sympathetic person and you can't help but like her.

Overall though, I did enjoy reading this book. It was a light read and not too taxing on my brain even though there were a number of different storylines to follow. It had some very amusing moments as well as some quite insightful and thoughtful ones. Also, at just under 300 pages it was about the right length for this type of read. I'm sure that if you are a bit of a romantic at heart you would find this book enjoyable too.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

If you think this sounds interesting, you might also want to take a look at Wedding Season by Katie Fforde which is also about a wedding planner.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens at Amazon.com.

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