When I hear James Patterson, I think ‘crime thriller’, so I was pleasantly surprised to read a James Patterson book, some time back, which was not a crime thriller- and yet, just as captivating – Sundays at Tiffany’s. Mark of a great writer, I suppose. So when I came across The Christmas Wedding, I just had to pick it up.
Gaby Summerhill is getting married on Christmas day – and nobody knows who to. Actually one person does know, Gaby herself, and she is keeping it to herself.
Gaby has sent video invitations to all her children. Gaby and her children have not spent Christmas together since her husband died four years ago, and there is nothing Gaby wants more than having her whole family together at Christmas, and she suspects that getting married will ensure that all her children will be with her at Christmas. Gaby has been proposed to by three men. All of them wonderful people, her close friends, and she will reveal which one would be her bridegroom on Christmas day. All three men, being her close friends agreed to go along with it, because they cared so much about her.
Gaby’s children are facing issues and worries of their own and bring it all to the wedding. A violent, irresponsible husband, young adolescent children in trouble, another very ill husband, a very successful daughter, who is forced to question her own success, and her son who is trying very hard to get published.
The story is a nice and easy read. I was a little disappointed when I realized that the there was no real twists, and everything just fit in well together – just as I expected, rather than the unexpected twist that I was hoping for. I could even guess who her mysterious bridegroom would be.
As I said, it was a nice and easy read, with not too much mystery or twists that I would have expected from the author. I was a little disappointed because I expected more. Perhaps the same book from some other author would have been less disappointing.
