The moment love-phobic Marla Jacobs discovers that the shop next to her Little White Wedding Chapel is to become a funeral parlour, she declares all-out war.
Marla’s chapel in the sleepy Shropshire countryside has become a nation-wide sensation, but the arrival of Funeral Director Gabriel Ryan threatens everything Marla has worked for. She can picture the scene: wedding limos fighting for space in the street with hearses; brides bumping into widows; bouquets being swapped for wreaths
Marla’s not going down without a fight. She enlists a motley crew of weird and wonderful local supporters, and the battle lines are drawn. But, as soon as Marla meets her nemesis, she realises just how much trouble she’s really in. His gypsy curls and Irish lilt make her stomach fizz – how is she supposed to concentrate on destroying him, when half the time she’s struggling not to rip the shirt off his back? (Blurb via Goodreads)
{Details} ebook, 280 pages, Published
April 25th 2013
by Authonomy: HarperCollins. Source: Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
{Review}
"Marla squinted at her new neighbours from the upstairs office window and fumbled around on the desk behind her for her glasses." (page 1, line 1)
An undertaker as a romantic lead? That's quite a challenge and I was intrigued to see if French could do it and on the whole I think she did. There's more than one love story, there are beginnings and endings and some beautiful moments along the way. The story made me think of the tv show William and Mary about an undertaker and a midwife who fall in love.
As I said there were some beautiful moments, the umbrella incident and the fireworks, and I absolutely wept at the dog and the lighthouse explanation, I think it's worth a read just for them. There were also a few misses for me, the biggest issue I had was mini spoiler alert at 10% when Gabe declared that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Marla but then takes another woman's word over hers, what kind of love is that? I also couldn't connect with Emily/the baby storyline, the reporter just felt skeevy and unbelievable as a love interest and from the description I expected more of the 'war' between the funeral parlor and wedding chapel and I didn't get it.
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