When their connecting flight from London to an Irish castle wedding is canceled, maid-of-honor Ada and best man Jack must navigate their travel and each other to arrive at the wedding in one piece. A fun premise and great banter, I wished Wedding Dashers would have just loosened up a bit and had a little more fun! My Wedding Dashers review is below!
Dating stories can be great, but I personally love stories set around weddings. There’s something about a wedding that gets everyone in that romantic mindset. And when the circumstances around a wedding get hijinx-y, I’m a total sucker for it.
Heather McBreen’s debut novel WEDDING DASHERS follows in that long tradition of wedding-related stories as it tells the tale of a maid of honor and a best man trying for a planes, trains, and automobiles approach to getting to a wedding held at an Irish castle on time. Ada and Jack meet when Ada’s connecting flight to the wedding from London is cancelled, leaving her stuck and trying to figure out how she’ll make it there. Totally broke, she can’t even afford a hotel room for the night. While considering what to do, she’s approached by a fellow traveler, and they have a drink. Ada, not realizing that this is the best man, pours her heart out about why she feels her sister’s engagement has gone too fast and why she shouldn’t even be getting married. When she realizes who Jack is, it’s too late–the damage is done. Although the two are initially attracted to each other, sparks fly and they take on a more antagonistic attitude. Jack is in the same travel situation, and the only way for them to get to the wedding will be to do it together. But will they make it there without destroying each other first?
So this concept is really cute–I love the Can You Keep A Secret? vibe of this premise as well as the potential for all sorts of travel fun throughout. I honestly wish McBreen had gone further with both of those ideas. It would have been fun if either Ada or Jack had revealed a secret to each other when they didn’t realize who the other one was that felt like it had more stakes to it. Feeling that the couple was moving too fast didn’t hold that much weight because this was something Ada had already shared with her sister Allison. I felt like McBreen just could have had a lot more fun with this idea and really put both Ada and Jack on their toes.
I felt similarly about the travel aspects in that, while there were some things that happened along their journey, I wish McBreen had just cut loose a bit more here. Anything can happen while you’re traveling, and this felt like sort of a missed opportunity to take both characters out of their comfort zones in really funny ways. I’m hard pressed to remember anything that felt really fun taking place with the travel. Though I did appreciate the ways that Ada and Jack’s relationship grew throughout their trip.
The banter here is strong, and I liked Ada and Jack’s dynamic. The book really explores what it means to be in a fully realized, adult relationship. Both characters are actualized enough to understand that they have growing to do personally before they’re really ready for that. Jack in particular has to deal with past heartbreaks, and his need for therapy to help with that is authentic. Ada needs to grow past getting out of a decade long relationship and the collapse of her personal tattooing business, so there is work for her to do too. I could definitely appreciate all of these elements and felt that the characters were grounded and relatable. But I think sometimes you just want to be swept away with the fun of something, and this book is almost too grounded for that.
Although we only meet Ada’s sister Allison and her fiancé in the last third of the book, I did think they were handled in an interesting way. Everything we know about them is through Jack and Ada’s POVs throughout the story. When we meet both, the groom’s obvious love for Allison ends up enhancing our opinion of Jack, who swore up and down that this was a good guy. But it also makes us question Ada, who’s POV of both Allison and her groom seem skewed. Ada makes amends with both, but I wished we could have understood better why her view had been so off.
All in all, I enjoyed this book–it has a fun meet-cute and the premise is really attractive. I just felt like with a little more loosening of the reigns and a little less grounding in reality, this one would have ranked higher for me. Still, it was worth the read, and I think romance lovers will enjoy the journey too.
My Wedding Dashers review rating
This was a 4 out of 5 stars for me.
My Romance Recipe Pairing
Try this one with my Banana Bread Baked Oatmeal Cups–the perfect handheld treat to enjoy mid-dash (whether to a wedding or just to your favorite reading chair).
Synopsis for Wedding Dashers
Synopsis (from Amazon):
Ada’s little sister is getting married. Which should be a happy thought, right? But the once close sisters have been in a year long fight, the wedding is all the way in Ireland, and Ada is so broke that she just barely managed to get a ticket on a budget airline. And as if things couldn’t get worse, said airline just cancelled her connection. Which means Ada is stuck in London with no way to make it to the wedding.
Surely she’s hit rock bottom?
So, there’s no reason for her not to spill her heart out about the over-the-top wedding, her sister’s worryingly quick engagement, and the womanizing best man she’s dreading meeting to a handsome also-stranded stranger at the bar. Until she realizes the stranger is headed to the same wedding. Oh, and he’s the infamous best man.
Now, Jack and Ada must put their simmering attraction behind them to make it to Belfast before they miss the nuptials. But between flat tires, missed trains, and suspect hostels, Jack and Ada start to question whether their feelings are worth going the distance, or just a distracting detour along the way.
Buy a copy of Wedding Dashers on Kindle
