Hall of Fame Review: Always the Bridesmaid by Lindsey Kelk

Thursday 7 May 2015
Title: Always the Bridesmaid
Author: Lindsey Kelk
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: 7th May 2015
Pages: 400
ISBN: 9780007582334
Source: Review Copy
Rating: 5/5
Purchase: Amazon
Everyone loves a bridesmaid - except Maddie, who’s perpetually asked to be one.

Everyone loves a wedding - except Maddie’s best friend, who’s getting divorced.

And everyone loves the way Maddie’s so happy behind the scenes - except Maddie herself.

One best friend is in wedding countdown while the other heads for marriage meltdown. And as Maddie juggles her best chance at promotion in years with bridezilla texts and late-night counselling sessions, she starts to wonder – is it time to stop being the bridesmaid.

I can't even put into words the excitement I felt when this book arrived early. Lindsey Kelk is the Queen of this genre. In fact, let's make her the Queen of everything, she is pretty amazing after all. Seriously though, I read her books and wonder just how she does it. Picking up a Lindsey Kelk novel is the ultimate pick me up, I swear even just holding one in my hands makes me feel better about myself when I'm feeling down. Always the Bridesmaid was no different, I loved every single page of it. I finished it and immediately wanted to read it again.

Our main character is Maddie and she has a real time of it throughout Always the Bridesmaid. Just how many things can go wrong for one person? Answer: a lot. Maddie is a party planner finally being given the chance to receive a long overdue promotion. Meanwhile one best friend, Lauren, has just gotten engaged and of course expects Maddie to help organise it, and to be on call 24/7, while the other, Sarah, is getting divorced. Bad time to be asked to be a bridesmaid. Maddie documents the months that follow in her bridesmaid journal, and some of the stuff in that journal left me incredibly grateful that it's something I could never be asked to do.

I remember when About a Girl was announced and it wasn't an Angela Clarke book. I was apprehensive to say the least, would it be as good? Well, we now know that it was just as good and so I wondered just how Maddie would compare with Angela and Tess. I love how Lindsey manages to make each of her main characters so different but equally lovable at the same time and with a couple of similarities. I just loved Maddie to the point where I wished she was an actual person, that I knew her in real life, that we were best friends. Yes, I found myself wanting to stalk a fictional character. Everybody just took her for granted, her family and her two best friends and I wanted to kick the lot of them because she is brilliant. In fact she reminded me of my own best friend at times. I think female readers will have no trouble relating to her and everyone will be rooting for her throughout the book as she is just such a believable character.

Lindsey always achieves the perfect balance of humour (laugh out loud, obviously) and drama and there's also some truly heartfelt scenes between certain characters in Always the Bridesmaid. The friendship between our three characters was a highlight, totally believable especially in the arguments they all have throughout. Of course, there's a love interest (or two). And as much as I wish I could talk in detail about the romance elements in Always the Bridesmaid, it really is impossible to do so without giving away spoilers apart from to say everything about it is so accurately realistic and believable that I wondered just how I failed to see some of the plot twists coming. And I love how everything came together and resulted in one of my favourite endings to one of Lindsey's books yet.

I finish a Lindsey Kelk novel and immediately get my sulk on because it's over. Luckily we don't have too long to wait for more with another release scheduled just before Christmas. I am already wishing my life away. I feel it is important to say that I am a blogger that doesn't automatically love every book from my favourite authors (see Peter James) but honestly, the day I don't enjoy a Lindsey Kelk novel is the day the world ends, and the day that I stop reading forever. So, trust me when I say that Always the Bridesmaid is one of her best yet, and you will love it. If you don't? Well then I'm sorry but we can no longer be friends.

5/5

2 comments:

  1. Great review Shaun i think the same as you lindsey is the queen of chick lit and just seeing the new book on my kindle this morning made me very happy

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  2. Fab review Shaun I agree whole-heartily, Lindsey is just the best :) Bought this yesterday and can't wait to read it - swear its calling me from the shelf!

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