Score: 3.5/5 Bookmarks

Steam Rating: 🍆🍆/5

Thank you to Entangled Publishing for gifting me a review copy of Always a Bridesmaid by Cindi Madsen. It comes out today, and you're going to want to get your hands on a copy!

This is a fun, light read that’s the perfect escape right now. The characters are lovable, and while you know they have their own set of baggage to deal with, you know they’re going to work it all out in the end.

Always a Bridesmaid takes place in Uncertainty, Alabama where Violet has basically escaped to after her life imploded. In true Romance style our heroine is a clumsy scatterbrain (her ADHD doesn’t help) and she manages to set some cupcakes on fire, causing her to meet our leading man Ford, who is (naturally) a firefighter.

I enjoyed the small town setting and the casual nature of their courtship — think games of pool, six-packs, and four wheeling rather than stuffy restaurants and elaborate dates. I also really liked the way the friendships were portrayed with the supporting characters, and I feel certain most of them are destined to get books of their own.

It was a little predictable, with both characters needing to overcome their commitment and abandonment issues before they could get their s*&t together. But, in these uncertain times is a little predictability necessarily a bad thing? I do also think it could have been a tad shorter than 399 pages without losing anything critical, but it was still a very quick read.

But it was definitely a fun read, with some really cute moments. Plus, despite being the second in the Getting Hitched in Dixie series it definitely works as a stand-alone book.

You can grab your own copy by clicking the button below.

Synopsis:

Violet Abrams has always been in love with everything love and weddings. Good thing, too, since she’s been a bridesmaid no less than seven times. Sure her turn was next, she’d been planning her own nuptials meticulously in a treasured three-ring binder...until her longtime boyfriend left her for someone else.

Fast-forward to the day of his wedding, an ill-advised match being lit to said binder, and the fire department getting called to her sister’s bakery. Violet’s always been a little impulsive and a lot awkward, but having to explain to the super-cute firefighter, Ford Maguire, why she was setting fire to a bunch of wedding dress photos? Worst day ever.

Except now her bridesmaid expertise has her helping Ford cover his “man of honor” duties in his best friend’s upcoming wedding. Ford may be a “bridesdude,” but forever is the last thing on his mind. And if there’s one thing a perpetual bridesmaid knows, it’s the importance of a happily ever after.