A little late on my Pub day review for The Wedding Season but as they say, better late than never. I enjoyed seeing Freya’s character development after being jilted an early at the altar by her fiancé/boyfriend of 12 years. The author balanced humor without seeming silly which I appreciated a lot. I went in thinking this book was a bit of a romance, mistake on my part, so I had to manage my expectations since I’m not a huge women’s lit fan but I did enjoy this read more as it went along! 3.5 stars!

Lighthearted, fun, emotional and funny - this is a well-rounded, charming story of second chances and self-discovery.

Really enjoyed the friendship dynamic. It was well developed, sweet, and realistic. Good friends round out a rom com and in my view, separate the memorable from the forgettable.

I could easily imagine this on screen, and if you love a good audiobook, the narrator for this one was perfect and a delight to listen to.

Lines I underlined:

“There’s nothing like the friendship kind of love, is there?”

“When you get dumped, on the day before your wedding, in a broom cupboard, everything seems a bit shit.”

“It turns out, that just as people can always completely surprise you, you can also completely, unintentionally, yet rather wonderfully, surprise yourself.”

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy of this title.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

The Wedding Season

by Katy Birchall

Pub Date: 03 May 2022

Freya's wedding is tomorrow...and her fiancé, Matthew, breaks it off (out of the blue!) the night before. This book will make you feel such a roller coaster of emotion. I utterly despised Matthew and was so angry at his parents for just letting go of Freya without any comfort. Freya's journey throughout the book will tug at your heart. However, her support system from her friends and their crazy project to help her get through the wedding season was absolutely brilliant! There are just as many funny and sweet moments as the heartbreaking devastation in the book. I admire how Freya little by little found herself and especially how she found the courage to let someone into her heart after what she was put through. The new romance was an additional treat, but the friendship with Ruby and Leo made my heart soar just as much as the relationship with the couple.

4.5 stars

This book had me hooked from page one. I consumed it in about one day, and it was so fun to read. Have already recommended to friends!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press Group for the ARC.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5 stars

The Secret Bridesmaid was one of my favorite books last year, so I could not wait for The Wedding Season. It was just as sweet and hilarious as I was hoping it would be. The Wedding Season follows Freya as she is faced with having to attend her friends’ weddings after being dumped hours before her own wedding. Her friends come up with the idea of helping Freya through wedding season by having her complete outrageous challenges at each wedding. By the final wedding, Freya may discover that her own love story isn’t quite over.

This was just adorable. I loved the concept, the characters, and the dialogue. I enjoy how Birchall creates an entire world that you just want to live in. Read this when you need a light, feel good story. All the stars.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am 2 for 2 with my adventures with Katy Birchall.

I really enjoyed this one. It was shockingly funny for picking up on the day her husband to be dumps her as they’re setting up for their wedding. Her friends and support system were so wonderful to her during and after her failed wedding. I wanted to shake her ex-fiancé by his ears for his behavior throughout the book.

I liked that the romance was almost secondary to the storyline of her figuring out who she wanted to be after spending her entire adult life with someone who didn’t work out.

I’m not sure what the opposite of a meet-cute is (a meet-ugly?) but I get a kick out of a story with mutual dislike at first sight so we can skip all of that awkward part of getting to know someone new and just get straight down to the sass.

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Griffin, and Katy Birchall for a copy in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

💐 Book Review 💐

#theweddingseason
#theweddingseasonbook
#kaybirchall
#contemporaryromance
#NetGalley published 5/3/2022
#stmartinspress
#stmartinsgriffin

💐💐💐💐 (4 bouquets out of 5 rating)

Freya gets jilted the day before her wedding. She is supposed to be the first of 8 weddings to happen this wedding season. How will she survive the summer? Her best friends Ruby and Leo have made up a challenge for her to complete at each wedding.

She also tries to avoid her outlandish mom who is trying to repair the relationships she messed up years ago with Freya and her brother. Thankfully she has a great relationship with her dad.

I felt the beginning (approx 1/4) of the book was a little slow for me. But things picked up once the outrageous challenges start, it definitely picks up a lot. It's fun following her through the challenges and watching her try to avoid both her ex, Matthew, and the annoying guy, Jaime, she had to drive 4 hrs as a favor for her friends to another wedding.

One fact that bothered me quite a bit was the very short amount of time that it took to start getting over such long time of a relationship. Very unrealistic, even for a romance novel. 🤷‍♀️

When you’ve only read two books by an author, is it too soon to claim them as a favourite? Because after reading and loving The Secret Bridesmaid last year (it was one of my favourite and most-recommended books of 2021) and then loving The Wedding Season even more, I’m ready to proclaim Katy Birchall a new favourite.

This book was an absolute delight. Birchall’s writing is fun and snappy, her characters are well developed and relatable, and the story takes you through a range of emotions. Both this and The Secret Bridesmaid are more romantic women’s fiction than straight-up romance, and I love how the focus is on the journey of the heroine with a side of swoony, life-changing romance.

After being dumped in a broom closet by her fiance the day before their wedding, Freya is naturally feeling lost and out of sorts. She expected to be starting a new phase of life with the man she loved, not learning how to live on her own, navigate being single, and deal with awkwardness and pity from friends and relationships. Even worse? Her wedding was going to be the kick-off to a year of weddings - seven in total - and she knows attending all those weddings will make it even more difficult to move on. To help Freya make the Wedding Season more bearable, her two best friends concoct a plan and make a list: one out-of-her-comfort-zone activity for Freya to accomplish at each wedding.

What ensues is absolutely hilarious. I giggled and grinned through the majority of this book (I even teared up a few times too). I adored Freya, her growth throughout the book, her friendship with Ruby and Leo, and the romance. I also liked that we got to travel vicariously with her to places like France and Ireland - stuff like that is always so fun to me in books.

I loved The Wedding Season SO much. I already know it’s going to make it to my list of 2022 favourites. I can’t wait to see what Katy Birchall has in store for us next.

this was fun but maybe not for me, i went in assuming this would be a romcom and i don’t think i really got that but it was a great story and concept. not my favorite by this author

I wanted to like this one. I really did. But 60% in and she was still complaining about Matthew. I get it was a long relationship she can’t easily get over. But I didn’t want to read about it. She was all consumed with getting over Matthew and it took her a long time to get over it. I would’ve like to touch on that and then read about her forever person. That’s my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Katy Birchall for the e-ARC of this book.
The Wedding Season is about Freya who is set to marry her longtime love, Matthew. He decides that he is not ready to get married the day before the wedding and calls it off in a broom cupboard. Her wedding was to be the first of 8 weddings of the summer. Freya must still attend all the other weddings. Luckily, she has amazing friends who come with challenges for her to complete to take her mind off of the nuptials. She takes on the wedding challenges with hesitation at first but really jumps into them.
I loved this book so much. The characters are all fleshed out and real. I love Freya. She could be whiny. She could be dark and morose, but she picks herself up after a certain period and knows she needs to move on. Her friends and family are all amazing. I love to see friends who lift each other up. I disliked her ex-fiancé but that is a good thing. The author did a great job of making him a slime for dumping her the day before the wedding but also shows how maybe they were not the best pair. Freya is able to get a few shots in on him as well which is satisfying.
This book does have romance in it, but the focus is on Freya’s growth. She takes a step back with some advice from an unexpected place and examines how she wants to live her life. Without giving too much away, I was in love with her romantic interest from the first conversation. They really click and take their time to spark their relationship.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a story of growth and friendship. I look forward to more books by Katy Birchall.

Thank-you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for the chance to review this ARC.

The Wedding Season was fun, sweet and it really hit in the feels.
Katy Birchall's writing was really great and it was relatable.
The friendships here were a highlight for me here.
Her journey was very heartwarming, and I loved how strong she was.

Just a wonderful and lovely story. I enjoyed the characters and the plot so much I recommended it to several friends. I hope to read more soon by this author.

Freya was jilted just before her wedding and now she has a summer of her friends weddings to get through alone. Two of her best friends step in to help and write her a series of challenges to accomplish at the weddings, to distract her as she attends them. Will she be ready to move on by the end of the wedding season?

Thanks to #NetGalley and #St.MartinsPress for an ARC of #TheWeddingSeason.

Honestly, this felt more like women's lit than a romance book. Which, is fine, I just wasn't expecting the first half of the book to be so depressing and not romantic. This was a book largely centered on Freya, who got her heart broken the day before her wedding and then the book follows her through her grief for a really long time before we get any sort of excitement. I really enjoyed the text exchanges between her and her friends and the story of friendship. If you are looking for a book that is about self-discovery and friendships this is the book for you!

The Wedding Season by Katy Birchall is a book that definitely took me by surprise, and I say this in the most positive way! This new-to-me author brings Freya, a 32-year-old successful brand manager at one of the largest alcoholic beverage manufacturer in England, into the story as the girl that got dumped by her 12-year boyfriend on the day before the wedding. Freya is left devasted after the event and tries to come to terms with attending the rest of her friends’ weddings while appearing to be okay. This is where Ruby and Leo, her college roommates and best friends that are engaged to be married, come into the picture to devise a guide in which Freya will have one assignment per wedding to focus on and be distracted from other thoughts.

Even though this book is categorized as a romance novel, mind you there will be a splash of romance for the sake of Freya, I want to say that it leans more into the women’s fiction section. That being said, it made me enjoy the book just as much as a romance novel, just because the plot is great and the characters that come into the picture with each wedding as well. The one thing that I enjoyed the most was reading how Freya got through her assignments for each wedding, but I also liked how the author portrayed Ruby, Leo and Freya’s friendship.

Also, the ending made me feel so good for Freya since I was rooting for her since the very beginning!

*ARC kindly provided by St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Griffin via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Last year I loved reading The Secret Bridesmaid and The Wedding Season was just as great. Although one may expect these books to be rom coms, they are actually more of contemporary fiction with some romance included. In this one, Freya is dumped in a broom closet by her fiancé the day before their wedding. Since theirs was meant to be the first of 8 weddings Freya would be attending, her best friends Ruby and Leo come up with fun and silly things for her to do at each wedding in order to distract her. At one she has to be the last one on the dance floor, at one she has to kiss someone goodnight, etc. I found Freya's inner thoughts to be funny and amusing!

This book was such a fun read! Katy Birchall is becoming a favorite author of mine with her or,acne reads. I read The Secret Bridesmaid last summer and now The Wedding Season with both novels having great main characters and storylines. The Wedding Season’s storyline has situations that are lighthearted that made me laugh out loud a few times and were so relatable while also focusing on the main topics of heartbreak and finding oneself. I found Freya to be a likable main character and enjoyed her journey of self-discovery throughout the wedding season shenanigans. Secondary characters were awesome in this one and the supportive family and friend relationships were really heartwarming! I loved the love interest in this one and his fun personality that pushed Freya out of her comfort zone while also appreciating her for exactly who she is. My only complaint was that I wish we would have a had a bit more of a storyline focus with scenes involving the love interest, but can appreciate that this book wanted to focus on Freya’s journey and truly enjoyed reading this one!

Thank you to publisher, author, and NetGalley for giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest review. This was a great story filled with sweet characters. Highly recommend for a light read!

I really enjoyed this book. At first I was a little thrown off with the formatting and when the MC would speak to herself, but as the story progressed I was so invested. Freya grew on me and I found that I was really proud of her personal development by the end of The Wedding Season. There may have been some storylines that were a little under developed, and I wish we had more of the love story included, but all in all, I really enjoyed it.