I haven't read Rachel Dove before but enjoyed this book. Easy chick lit read with a couple of unexpected twists. Enjoyable read and I would look out for her other books. Thank you for accepting my request.

This is a run of the mill chick-lit book. The protagonist (Maria) is jilted at the altar by her successful and fairly rich fiance whose parents don't approve of their relationship. She owns a wedding shop as her business, which makes her return to work even more excruciating. There's a litany of problems with the shop and business is hardly booming. When she thinks that she's given up and stops looking, love tries to find its way towards her.

It was fairly easy to read but there seemed to be too much going on at the same time. It just made the plot feel messy and too short to finish everything off properly. There's an awful lot of different characters points of view included if she had perhaps stuck to just one it would have made the plot work in her favour.

I'm not a fan of false promises either and this book claimed to be laugh-out-loud funny. I certainly don't recall laughing out loud once whilst reading.

It had potential to be thoroughly enjoyable. It just felt rushed, at times messy with the plot and a little too predictable. An ok read but not something I'll be jumping back to read any time soon.

As a wedding planner, this plot has to be your worst nightmare - but Maria handled herself with some class and I enjoyed her second chance to find the right kind of love!

A light, sweet read. It’s perfect for a quick casual read - funny too, some laugh out loud moments whilst being quite endearing. An entertaining read of romance, love and friendship. The characters are likable and perfect for a cute chick lit read.

At t8mes this felt like two books that were squashed together. Some of the sub plots were a bit unbelievable but overall it was a feel good book.

I loved this book and found the characters great to follow. As I started reading it, I did feel that I might have already read it but I hadn't. There must have been quite a lot of similarities (including location) to another novel.

Loved this book such a easy read your fall in love with the character your pull into the plot they character became your friend great plot i was hooked loved the writing style

4☆ A Warm Engaging Romance

Of all the things to happen to a wedding planner.... being stood up at your OWN wedding has to be one of the worst!!
Well that's exactly what happens to wedding planner Maria on her wedding day.
My heart literally broke for her.
It's not great advertising for your business, and when news gets out her custom slows down.

But for Maria things are about to get worse.
Luckily she has a great friend, Cassie who gives her the strength she needs to dust herself off and keep going.

The wedding shop on wexley street is a very enjoyable read about second chances, love, secrets, friendship and new beginnings.

The characters were well written.
I really liked Maria and admired her strength and determination to carry on after such a devastating wedding. I'm not sure I could have!
The pace was fluid and the romance sprinkles along nicely, the writing style was engaging, entertaining, warm and witty with some laugh out loud moments.

Although this is the third book in the series it was my first book, I think it would have been good to have read the previous books but it wasn't particularly an issue.

I would definitely recommend reading this feel good, warm book if you enjoy romance and weddings.

Thank you to BrookCottage Books for this copy which I reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. The characters were well drawn, extremely believable and the humour between them made it all very real.

The moral of this story is that none of us are perfect, none of us lead perfect lives and we all make mistakes, but the love that can happen between the most unlikely characters can often amaze us all.

A fun summer read but at first I found it difficult to relate to the characters. It is worth persevering with as the storyline has some great funny moments.

I was a bit reluctant to read this book as it has "wedding" on the title. Not that I am against wedding, not at all! but usually I find books about wedding quite boring. But don't be fooled by the title. The wedding part of the book is just a small part of it and mostly because Maria who was jilted at the altar by her husband-to-be is herself a wedding planner and owns her own wedding business. But because she has been jilted at the altar, her business is no longer very successful but then she discovers that she has wonderful friends around her and that even if she thinks that her life is ruined, she might have a second chance to build another life. This book is about friendship and second chances and I absolutely loved it! It was the first time I was reading a book by Rachel Dove and I am already waiting for her next one!

This was a quick fun read. It is definitely a little more on the predictable side of stories but a good read nonetheless. There were definitely some laugh out loud moments and some larger than life characters which keep the reader engaged.

Quick and easy with good humour.

My first novel by Rachel Dove and I was pleasantly surprised.

The Wedding Shop on Wexley Street is a light and enjoyable read for anyone that appreciates/enjoys this genre.

We follow our protagonist Maria as she navigates life after the devastating blow of being jilted at the alter - Rachel Dove does an incredible job at bringing the characters to life off the page in this little gem. The novel is full of lighthearted fun and there were also a few occasions that had me feeling really emotional which is a testament to Rachel's writing!

A really enjoyable read from start to finish!

It's a little more hurtful to be jilted at the altar when you are the owner of the wedding shop (Happy Ever After) in your village! Hurt and angry, Maria lets her guard down on a night out. What follows is a light-hearted romance which is thoroughly entertaining.

I really enjoyed this comical at times romance story.

Maria being jilted at the altar sets of a sequence of events that climaxes in the biggest change to her life ever!
Maria is a wedding planner in Westfield, a delightful small town, and she's one audacious woman. She gets right back up and goes to work.
It was a happy, bubbly and entertaining read which had me feeling a bit emotional in parts. I really felt for Maria and was so glad that she had some great people around her to help pick her back up when she was at her lowest.
Great read and a great ending.

Maria being jilted at the altar sets of a sequence of events that climaxes in the biggest change to her life ever! Laughter and joy interspersed with disappointment and grief weave together to make a heart warming, engaging story about friendship and love. I loved it and will be back reading this author in the future.

This book was a rollercoster, it was kind of a Murphy's law situation, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. The book starts on Marias’ most important day, her wedding day. Her BIGGEST dream was to be married, the dress, the photos the whole show; and as the owner of Happy Ever After, she know how to do it big time. The only that was thing missing on her big day.... was the groom.

Picking up the pieces of her life after her fiancé didn’t even bother to show up to the wedding, we begin a story of... well figuring out how to make things work. I'm trying really hard to keep this non spoiler as possible so I'll end the recap there, but let’s just state the obvious, yes she decides to go out, yes something happened and yes she finds an awesome guy.

This was my first Rachel Dove novel and it was lovely. This was a funny, quirky story, is written in 3th person, as if the reader was a ghost who can read minds. It was amusing/frustrating to read it like that because there were sometimes where I wasn’t sure who was thinking something but overall it was fine. The plot and development of the story were great, I couldn’t put it down, when I thought that they couldn’t surprise me anymore, Rachel found a way to grab my attention and hold it for dear life.

I hated/liked (rollercoster I tell you) that the story was not only about Maria, but also about Cassie and even thou it wasn’t that much I loved her story and wanted more of her interaction with Tucker (whom let me tell you, was awesome). We even get to see snippets of the jerk, those were a little with weird because at some point he just disappear (don’t get me wrong, he was never supposed to come back) but why show them and make him look human?

Bottom line here is that this was a good read, I do recommend!

What a brilliant, lighthearted read, I loved it right from the first page. Maria is a wedding planner and owner of the Happy Ever After wedding shop, which she inherited from her late mother. She thinks she has found her happy ever after with Darcy a self centred mummies boy who leaves her at the altar and runs off to enjoy the honeymoon without her. The knock on effect of Darcy jilting her is that her business suffers but thankfully Maria has Cassie, her best friend who collects her processions from Darcys flat and let's her stay with her. When Maria needs an electrician James not only sorts the electrics out but also becomes a good friend, always there when she needs help.

Her best friend Cassie isn't good at lasting relationships so when she meets Tucker on a night out she doesn't intend him sticking around. One of the funniest parts for me was the incident with Cassie, Tucker and a car door - what a brilliant piece of writing. We also meet James' sister Annabelle who is engaged to Mark, what will happen when a secret is revealed?

I loved this book, it's certainly one for reading round the pool, while sipping something cold and delicious

This is my first book by this author and I really liked it! I don’t usually read this genre but the cover and synopsis caught my eye! A good read!

5 - "Everyone needs a second Chance." Stars!

I absolutely adore Rachel Dove’s writing, and without doubt The Wedding Shop on Wexley Street is her best book yet.

"I can’t help but think we were meant to meet…"

We return to Westfield for the third time, with this book loosely being related to The Chic Boutique on Baker Street & The Flower Shop on Foxley Street in that they are all set in the same locale, with some interconnecting characters. You can absolutely read all three books in any order though.

She needed to prove to everyone, and herself for that matter, that she could still stand on her own two feet. She’d done it before, now she would do it again…

Maria Mallery is trying top pick the pieces of her life up and start again after being left at the alter by Yorkshire tea tycoon Darcy Burgess, mummies boy to the end, he bows to familial pressure rather than walk the supposed girl he loves down the aisle. Luckily Maria has a strong back-bone, part of which is held up by her best friend Cassie, who herself is feisty, independent and not shy of telling it how it is.

"I will be okay… one day… I’m working on it."

Being jilted at the altar isn’t the best advertisement for a wedding planner, and Maria finds business a little on the slow side in the aftermath of the wedding-that-never-happened. Adding to the pressure, Darcy has now decided since returning from their honeymoon that he might have made an epic mistake and looks to make inroads on re-wooing her back into a relationship with him, much to her friends and her own chagrin.

"Life is messy!"

To add to the overall shenanigans, the absolutely lovely electrician James Chance, who initially comes to check on Maria's wiring, turns into a man that seems to generally be in the right place at the right time whenever Maria finds herself looking for support in life, someone to do a bit of DIY, or remove her errant ex-Fiancé from her shop, he also seems to be eliciting all sorts of new and fizzy emotions from her, whenever they are in the same proximity.

She couldn’t lose anyone else… If she didn’t let him get any closer, it wouldn’t hurt when he left her…

This book had a little bit of everything in regards to tropes, and is told from multiple POVs, although Maria is in the fore, Cassie, James and Darcy play a part in the stories overall telling. There were multiple moments when I laughed my arse off and I have to give kudos to Rachel for bringing such a great cast of characters together. I loved everyone, even the dastardly Darcy, and pretty much read the book in one sitting, I literally left a full body print in the sofa I didn’t move for so long.

He was in this, whatever it was, and he didn’t know how, or in what way exactly… he just knew he wanted to be there.

I hope we get more from this series, something Christmassy would be a very welcome addition for this reader, although to be honest I don’t really care what the season or reason is for returning, I’d happily read anything this author releases because she always delivers an extremely entertaining, well thought out reading experience with her books.