The Inn at Angel Island is officially open for business, and owner Liza Martin has booked her first major event-a June wedding. Liza wants to make sure that the couple has a perfect wedding day, but she soon notices tension between the bride and groom and begins to wonder: What good is the most spectacular setting or cake if the love between the couple isn’t as beautiful and strong?
Liza is hoping everything will come together, but on the day of the wedding a storm rolls in-and the groom is nowhere to be found. Everything is going wrong, and Liza realizes that it will take nothing short of a miracle to make this wedding a success. Then again, if you have faith and love, Angel Island is just the sort of place where miracles can happen.- 2011, Berkley Publishing Group
I found The Wedding Promise in a library stand in my neighborhood. Despite being free, I still paid too much for this lack-luster-ass story. The best character is the dead aunt, Elizabeth, from whom Liza inherited the Inn at Angel Island. We hear about the aunt’s personality and deeds through Liza’s memories and stories of her from the inn’s past guests. You miss Elizabeth, even though you haven’t met her. If the rest of the characters had gotten the same treatment, I might have connected with them, but unfortunately, all of their traits were told, not shown, so we have to take the authors’ word for it that they’re cool too.
The story wants us to root for a romance between Liza and Daniel, the handyman, but they hardly have enough scenes together to show any chemistry. Their conversations aren’t deep or thought-provoking because both purposefully don’t share any information about themselves or their past. So we, the readers, don’t know them, and they don’t know each other. Sounds like the making of a great relationship.
The bride and groom are no better. Their only characteristic is that they’ve been in love since high school, and their communication skills still haven’t reached puberty. Despite being in premarital counseling, they don’t seriously discuss the possible changes that could come with marriage, so at the first bump in the road, the groom literally runs away. And to be honest, for his sake and for the bride, I hoped he’d stay away so they could both grow up and try again when they’re adults. The characters in this story– in this town– don’t need a miracle. They need to act like adults, get a real premarital counselor, and learn how to create some real drama to make an interesting (excitement is too much to hope for) story—Low Borrow it.
H.A. Worthington & Cat
