Friday, October 16, 2015

Up To I Do by Samantha March

3.5 Star

Emerson Sinclair, twenty-seven year old hotel heiress, has said yes. With just over a year to plan her extravagant, over the top nuptials to Logan Worthington, it’s all hands on deck with the wedding plans. A Sinclair marrying into the Worthington family is the talk of their small New Hampshire town, and ideas include filming the wedding for a TV segment. But as the items get checked off the list, plans start to go ... not as planned. From not getting a designer dress to a selfish bridesmaid and unaccountable best man, Emerson is afraid her wedding will be more a joke than anything. 
When both her mother and sister seemingly begin to lose interest in her wedding plans in favor of their own personal lives, Emerson fears her big day will turn into the forgotten wedding. With the pressure to pull off a beautiful and elegant event that everyone expects from their respectable families, Emerson starts to forget the reason why she is saying I Do in the first place.
But her spirited Grams is there to make sure neither happens. With her help and guidance, Emerson not only has her wedding plans back on track, but she remembers the reason why they are going through the stress of wedding planning – because at the end of it all she gets to marry her true love, and marriage is defined by more than a wedding. 




Kathryn - 3.5 Star

I had some troubles with Emerson- sometimes I wanted to shake her silly and ask her whether she really thought she wasn’t a bride-zilla?  Perhaps the frustration was really in that she had hired a wedding planner who seemed to be absent entirely from the plot of the novel- in theory I think a wedding planner should be taking care of the organisation of the wedding and making sure you’re not feeling overwhelmed but it seemed that this wedding planner was only there for a moment or two during the process.  There are kudos due then to Emerson who takes on the details and planning with the help of her sometimes absent family & friends.  I don’t think I’d be too keen on undertaking such an event, especially as her family and Logan’s were prominent enough names to merit some attention.

I liked Emerson the most when she was with her grandmother and when she was at work.  I found her to be the most empathetic when she was vulnerable with grandma Pearl and controlled enough at her job. She’s a tough business woman and obviously has everything under control in her job coordinating events in the family business.  I’m not sure though why this didn’t translate to her wedding so easily.  I think she was expecting more planning to come from the people around her and realistically she probably should have realised it was either going to fall on her or on the wedding planner.

I really enjoyed the last 20 pages of the novel- the whole thing came together in the end and I was reminded of how stressful planning a wedding can be and how the most important part is the one you’re marrying and your closest family and friends to share it.  Their last minute decisions made the novel for me. Their love for each other in those scenes drew me in like I had only been at moments before during my read.  Up to I Do flew off the pages, it’s my first novel by Samantha March and I’d be very happy to read another!


Thank to the author for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

Connect with Samanta March:


1 comment:

Share!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...