Sigh. Lottie fiinds her place planning weddings after she's dumped by her fiance but it takes a while for her to come into her own. It's a toss up whether this is about over the top weddings and bridezillas or about Lottie, who is remarkably immature in spots. Another edit would have helped, I think, to pare out some of the repetition and to make Lottie more sympathetic. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. To be clear, parts of this will make you cringe but others might make you laugh out loud.

Without A Hitch by Mary Hollis Huddleston and Asher Fogle Paul is a story that follows Lottie as she works as a wedding planner at extravagant weddings in Texas. Lottie’s life has not turned out as she had planned, and she thought she would have been married by now. Instead she is helping others plan their big day.

For me the highlight of Without A Hitch was reading all the very funny and interesting wedding stories. I laughed out loud, cringed, and was thoroughly amused by each one. Each wedding was unique and humorous. From weddings dealing with chicken coups to ones gone terribly wrong they were not your run of the mill nuptials.

I feel like this story is about making peace with your past, seeing the bigger picture of your life, and being willing to move forward into a better future. I guarantee you will laugh out loud many times while reading. I would categorize this as women’s fiction with a touch of romance.

I was given a complimentary copy and not required to write a review.

Floundering wedding planner Lottie is a tad lost in life. While working for The Firm, she helps plan weddings with unlimited budgets, but her personal life is a bit of a mess. When she's tasked with planning her college boyfriend's super secret wedding, it's just her luck that two other potential love interests will be there to possibly ruin her chances of promotion.

What I liked:
I loved the angle of Lottie's involvement in the wedding business, especially after her "failed" first wedding. Her group of college friends were super fun, even though we mainly see one of them more than others in the present day. The subplot of small things going off kilter and figuring out who might be sabotaging Lottie was also super fun.

What I disliked:
Although the descriptions of the over the top weddings were fun (helicopter jumping groom and swan boat tied to the getaway boat), as the book went on, they felt a tad monotonous. I was more heavily invested with her planning the wedding for her ex, so I was hoping to have more of that in the book. I also liked that Lottie had romantic options, but she flip-flopped way too much, almost giving me whiplash of who she truly liked. It felt like a lot of work and in the end, not a ton of payoff.

This was such a light fun read. I think Lottie, our main character, is a hot mess from beginning to nearly the finish, however, that's kind of the entire point.

Life is a series of choices, paths, adventures if you will. Sometimes people cruise right along and others they are stuck at a fork or worse they've just stopped.

Nothing in life will ever be perfect but the point is to continuously discover and rediscover who we are. To keep up with ourselves and how we grow with each of those decisions we made. . . it's a journey.

Lottie had her life planned, she thought she knew what she wanted, and when that plan was derailed, she spun out. We get to be with her as she rediscovers who she is.

Sometimes in life we think we want something and then a shift in perspective shows we had what we wanted all along. The grass is always greener and all that ... or is it?

Thank you to Harper Muse, Mary Hollis Huddleston, Asher Fogle Paul and NetGalley for the advanced review copy.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. These opinions are my own.

Hilarious! I loved the main character and how she has drifted into wedding planning instead of it being her career goal. As she winds through life, she's figuring out herself and what she really wants.

I felt like the focus was on Lottie and her personal growth. We see her on the page with the potential love interests, but more time is spent with her on the job. There were a few times I was confused abut time passing and how her relationships had changed, but I caught on within each paragraph.

I recommend this book for a fun read. It's perfect for the beach or in front of the fire.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

This book is very straightforward in its plot, its characters, its highs, and its lows. This is not a bad thing necessarily, as I purposely picked this to read instead of something else I was already reading since I needed something "easy" to get through, and this book is very much what you see is what you get. I enjoyed it a lot overall, but I can also see where some of the negative reviews are coming from.

Pros: the characters are CHARACTERS - meaning it is fun to see them interact, I think they all have great personalities, and people are described for a reason, not just filler. This was inspired by true stories and from reading it I could definitely see where that was coming from. Nothing felt too drawn out overall, and I enjoyed seeing how things developed.

Cons: Maybe it was just me, but some of the interactions between the main character and her surrounding people when describing/working at these weddings felt mean. Like, I understand they are describing over-the-top weddings for people who have sickening amounts of money, but they are still people? Especially when I remember it was based on true stories (to some extent) it made me kind of uneasy how mean some of the interactions were about the guests/clients. The constant play into traditional gender roles bothered me too, but I will chalk that up to plying into being stereotypically southern.

Overall, it was an easy read (finished in a few hours over the course of a day) and it was fun. Nothing too life altering but I really enjoyed the epiphanies that the main character had - I can see those being very useful for some of the people who might read this book. I can see myself getting this book for some friends but I don't see myself picking it up again soon. 3.5/5

Thanks to Harper Muse for an advanced copy of Without a Hitch.

Without a Hitch is a fun women's fiction about a wedding planner for a big Dallas event planning company.

I liked all of the funny wedding event stories and hijinks that happed. While it's a romance I honestly think it's more about self discovery and finding out who you are and what you want to be.

Thank you for the ARC copy for review.
Unfortunately this one was not for me. It was cute but I didn't find that there was much of a plot to pull me in. I DNF'd at the 50% point.

Pub date: Dec 7, 2021
In one sentence: Lottie loves planning weddings, until she ends up planning the wedding of her football star ex-boyfriend and a famous actress.

I think your opinion of this book will vary according to how much you love weddings. I am a huge wedding fan, and I love reading about over-the-top weddings, so I was on board for this book. If you're not a big fan of weddings, I think the book might seem overly long since most of the plot is wedding-based. Lottie is a sweet character who reminded me of some of the girls I went to college with, and I was happy to follow her career and romance arc. This book is cute, and it reminded me of the fun weddings I got to attend pre-COVID.

Thank you to Harper Muse for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this book. I did love the Southern references. So many things mentioned I could relate to and loved seeing in print. My biggest problem with the book is that I didn’t really know what the focus was. Was it planning her ex-boyfriends wedding? Who we didn’t even meet until the end. Was it the random relationship with Matt that was very vague? Was it about meeting Griffin who seemed to have a personality disorder? Or was it Lottie who really didn’t seem to care or have a clue about what was going on. I didn’t love or connect with a single character. And there wasn’t any relationship build up or swoon. It just wasn’t for me.

Thank you Harper Muse for the ARC.

It took me a while to get into this book - I felt that Lottie spent a lot of time focusing on how her life had gone wrong, but also not really doing anything about it. As the story progressed we saw her grow, and I liked seeing Lottie figure out what she actually wanted. I did laugh a lot at the weddings - it seemed that each one was crazier than the previous! This was a cute read, but the slowness at the start & Lottie's focus on the past was hard to get through.

I was really excited about this book (yay weddings! In the words of Jack Sparrow, “I love weddings! Drinks all around”). I’ve seen enough episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress” (and attended enough weddings) that many similar scenes here came to life quickly and easily; the author absolutely paints mental pictures easily and well.

But, the book ultimately checked enough boxes for me personally on my content-policy no-go list, so I had to set it aside (language and content, along with a fair bit of alcohol included, which turned triggering). Sadly a DNF for me and a reminder of why I typically go for Christian fiction. (For alternatives in a similar genre, consider the “Weddings by Bella” series.)

I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Lottie thought her future was clear. She would marry her college sweetheart and become a WAG, but she never saw him breaking it off. This college finale set Lottie adrift, and when I caught up with her, she was still down on love and trying to figure things out. She had put those wedding planning skills to good use by earning a position with The Firm - the preeminent event planners in the Dallas area.

Given that Lottie was an event planner, there were a multitude of lavish and over-the-top shindigs included in her story. I did find these events intriguing and amusing, but I was more interested in Lottie's story. She had a lot of baggage from her past that was holding her back, and I wanted to see her moving forward.

Because of this, I definitely enjoyed the latter part of the book more. There was a bigger focus on Lottie's journey, and she started to come to some conclusions about where she's been and where she's going. I felt the ending was a bit rushed, and I think I would have liked a bit more there, but it was enough to give me hope for Lottie.

The book has an interesting premise, it's sweet and easy to read, especially over the holiday season. The characters have a good development throughout the book and there are many haphazard moments over wedding planning that the readers might find amusing. The pace is good and the plot is solid.
However, there are a couple of clumsy episodes where the writing didn't flow and some of the scenes didn't make much sense or add much to the plot. The wedding planning element seemed well-thought and researched. Overall if you'd like to be entertained and find the world of wedding planning interesting, then this is the book for you.
I have kindly received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and HarperMuse in exchange of a fair review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It was a cute slightly boring rom-com. The main character was well developed but the other characters lacked a story. There was potential for those to be better developed. The storyline was slow and predictable. I was able to put down the book several times and continue with life without thinking about these characters. The copy had many errors, but it may have been due to the e-version or an advanced reader's version.

Loved this book, I could see it being made into a TV movie. Lottie was a fun character who often found herself in hilarious situations as a wedding planner. The story follows Lottie as she reconciles with her past and an old college boyfriend in order to move forward and know what she wants in life. I enjoyed all the characters in the book and could envision how they would look if brought to life. It’s a quick fun read.

I received a free copy from NetGalley and all opinions are my own. I would recommend this book to friends or my book club.

I had high hopes for Without a Hitch, but I struggled to connect with the characters and the story in general. There were too many weddings and too many details. The start was pretty slow and I kept waiting for something exciting to happen other than another wedding. There were some funny situations, but it wasn’t enough to make me stick with the story.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This was such a fun book! Lotties wedding planning adventures were a delight to read. I enjoyed seeing the characters grow, both personally and professionally. I wish There was more romance between Lottie abs her main love interest but it was still an enjoyable read.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Without a Hitch definitely has its humorous moments but weddings are definitely the theme. Character development seems lost most of the time to the sheer description of all the weddings. Lottie comes off as shallow and a little lost. In college she planned her wedding without receiving a proposal and was dumped by a future NFL superstar. Out of sorts, she figures out she might be good at planning weddings and so begins the career of Lottie Jones. The ending is definitely the best part of the story as Lottie outshines all the weddings. Somewhat humorous and sometimes too slow, the book has its adorable moments but also has plenty of yawn worthy times too. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from NetGalley.

I really wanted to like this story. Such a cute cover, and the glowing endorsements and early praise from bestselling authors encouraged me to give this book a try. Unfortunately, the shallow content and slow pace left me feeling disappointed. There's not much humor to be found here, and the romance is slow to develop and not at all satisfying. Thank you for the opportunity. For me, this one missed the mark.