When her fiancé ends their engagement, Freya spends the next weeks mourning the loss, figuring out how to feel normal again. She dreads the slew of weddings she's scheduled to attend over the summer. Her BFFs come up with a plan: they give her a series of challenges to complete at each event, each one more shocking than the last. Can Freya find the strength to move out of her comfort zone and learn to fall in love again?

Katy Birchall has a strong, humorous voice that make this book fun to read. It's women's fiction, not romance, with the love interest playing a secondary role. The first quarter of the book consists of Freya grieving, with a few outrageous incidents to keep it from becoming maudlin. After that, the pace picks up, and the book develops more of a chick lit feel. Still, the specter of the broken engagement hovers over the book—the closure of Freya's relationship with her ex plays as large a role in the book as the new relationship with the love interest.

Do I wish there had been more romance and less grief in this book? Yes. But that's not the story the author was telling. This is a funny, emotional read with a satisfying ending that should appeal to women's fiction and rom com readers alike. The audiobook narration was delightful and helped to counter some of the sadness.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

The Wedding Season was a cute, albeit slightly boring story if I'm being honest.
Not to say it was bad, but there were some times I felt like the plot could have been taken to another level. I really enjoyed the inclusion of the list, but I was also listening and thought "How is this love interest so prominent in her life now, and how does he seem to know every person she knows but they never met and never heard of each other?" It confused me a bit.

Anyways, it was cute.

This was a lovely story of self-love and growth, forgiveness, and moving on. I really enjoyed the characters and the story!

Freya has just been left, not quite at the altar, but in the broom closet. Regardless of the location, she’s got an entire wedding to unravel now. After taking some time to recover from the heartbreak, it’s closing in on the wedding season, and Freya’s friends have her back. They give her a challenge to complete at each wedding. The challenges are to help her get through the wedding and get over Matthew.

Freya takes these challenges head on. Some go better than others, but the journey along the way provides overall growth and healing for her. I loved being a part of it, and I think other readers will as well. Freya’s character is easy to like, and her friends are so supportive, you want to get to know them as well.

There’s a nice romance storyline in here, but really, I think this book is about the growing and healing that happens after a breakup, and the glimmer of new romance on the horizon. I highly recommend this one for readers that enjoy lighter reads of family, friends, and love.

Enjoyable audiobook with good narration. But, and it’s a big one, this is not a novel I would classify as a romance. While there is a HEA at the end, which involves romance, it’s a bit beside the point, really. And, the lighthearted premise does get a bit heavy in places.

Freya has eight weddings to attend this year, starting with hers and ending with her best friends' in the fall. Except the day before her wedding, her fiancé calls it off. A mess, she somehow has to pull herself together and get through all of these weddings. Her best friends come up with a challenge for each of the weddings- something to distract her and push her a bit. She forces herself out of her comfort zone over and over and starts to see her life from a new angle.

While some have described this as a rom-com, I think that is misleading. While there is technically a romance, it is pretty minor overall. It is funny at times, but not lighthearted, which is kind of anti-rom-com.

The beginning of this book was rough. Really rough. I contemplated DNFing it even. This is one of the few times I am glad that I persevered. As Freya grew, she became less annoying. The early stages, fresh off her break up, she was pretty intolerable. And that part seemed to drag. But once the weddings started coming, things got much better.

I listened to the audio version. The narrator did a good job- well paced and articulate.

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This falls more into women's fiction. I think if I didn't have the audiobook I don't think I would have finished ONLY because the first 25% of the book is hard to get through emotionally. Freya gets dumped by her fiancé Matthew the night before her wedding...in a closet. He was her first love and long time relationship of 12 years since collage so the first 25% we are seeing Freya learning to cope and just be in a complete miserable state. It was not fun to read that. Plus she had 7 other weddings (friends) to go to and I don't think we even got all of the weddings. Plus Freya's family dynamics also left a bad taste as they were not fun to read about either. I do like Jamie's character (new love interest) he was a breath of fresh air for the story. The ending ended up being bittersweet because it took a lot to get there.

I highly recommend the audiobook as narrator Daphne Kouma did a good job.

I received this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Freya gets left at the alter. Wedding season is about to start, now Freya has seven weddings to go to. Freya is very relatable, I liked her. This book was sad and amusing. At times it seemed this audio dragged on. For the most part, it was perfectly enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free audiobook of The Wedding Season.

I love British stories! I prefer historical romance to contemporary, but I’m trying to give contemporary a chance. Jenny Colgan is one of my favorite contemporary romcom writers. With that said, this book wasn’t for me. It’s not my type of story.

Freya gets dumped by her fiancé Matthew the day before their wedding. It seems like this breakup trope is used a lot and it’s not my favorite. I understand she’s devastated. She had her heart broken and she had been with him for a long time, but the way she reacts after seems slightly crazy and obsessive. I mean someone who gets peacocks for their wedding seems a bit odd. She seemed like she has OCD. She was supposed to have her life together before, but it definitely didn’t seem like that after. Did she just forget how to keep things together?

I honestly didn’t really like her as a character. She was always getting embarrassed and acting like she was doing stupid things. I thought she was supposed to have confidence and not be so insecure?

I’m not really a fan of that repetitive comedy dialogue. Example:
“He took Percy.”
“He took Percy?”
“He took Percy!”
“Why did he take Percy? Who’s Percy?”
“My house plant!”
“You have a house plant named Percy?”

It felt like much of the dialogue was like that. I’m sure many people love that kind of merry-go-round, but I’m just not a fan of it.

Do people regularly run naked through a hotel hallway?

I don’t like breakups where they want to get back together.

Maybe my expectations were different. By the title and short description, I was thinking it would be a fun romcom where she went through a breakup and found someone new. I thought there’d be more wedding high jinks. I didn’t expect her to wallow through most of the book.

Freya goes on about Matthew being selfish for dumping her before the wedding. No one wants that, but I think it’s better than going through an unhappy marriage and divorce. I think people get caught up in the idea of a wedding and wanting to be married, but they don’t think about if it’s really right for them. People are allowed to back out at any time before the wedding. I think there’s a stigmatism about it, but clearly from Freya’s behavior after, they weren’t right for each other. In her defense, there could’ve been more of a reason for the breakup. Matthew definitely was weak. I didn’t get a real sense of why
However, he broke up with her cleanly. He doesn’t really owe her anything after that. Freya is so obsessed with getting back at him. She kicks him and throws wine in his face. She just won’t let it go.

The romance wasn’t enough for me. Sorry, I don’t like this book enough to recommend it.

Freya’s wedding is the first of many of wedding season and she is sure it will be perfect. But when her fiancé, Matthew, calls the wedding off the day before the wedding, Freya’s entire life plan falls apart. To help her get through the remaining 7 weddings she’s invited to, Freya’s friends create a list of outrageous challenges she has to complete at the upcoming weddings - everything from running naked in the hotel hallways, to kissing a stranger. And while completing the challenges, she finds herself having fun and starting to find herself.

This was such a fun one to read! I loved seeing Freya come out of her comfort zone to complete the various challenges. Despite the heavy beginning, there were so many laugh out loud moments and the overall tone of this book felt so joyful. I adored Freya’s friends Ruby and Leo and how the three interacted with each other. This was less a romance and more of a sweet journey of healing and finding yourself.

I switched between the ebook and audiobook for this one. The narrator, Kathleen McInerey was fantastic to listen to!

Thank you to SMP Romance, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the advanced copies.

Truth: I just asked for this on NetGalley because it was available for audio and has a cute cover. Sometimes that works out for me, sometimes it doesn’t.
This is a perfectly fine book it just isn’t really my kind of book. It’s tagged on NetGalley as a romance and I would call this women’s fiction. Freya does have a romance interest but that’s not really the focus of the book. This is about her getting over her ex leaving her right before her wedding and surviving all the other weddings she has to attend this year. It’s a fine story but it’s kinda pushing it to call it a romance.
I almost DNFd the book. The beginning was way too drawn out. It took too long to get to the actual thick of the plot. You don’t even meet the love interest, Jamie, until like 1/3 into the book.
I didn’t hate it but I can’t say that I would have read this if I had known more going into it. If you like a healing finding yourself journey story you would probably like this. Just not my preference for a book.
Thank you to NetGalley, St Martins Griffin, and Macmillan Audio for the advance copy of this book. Release date is 5/3!
I will post on my Instagram as well @katebrownreads and will update with a link once I have posted.

I enjoyed The Secret Bridesmaid, so I was really looking forward to this next installment from Katy Birchall. The Wedding Season ended up being an unexpected favorite of the month! I wasn’t expecting how funny this book would be.

I adored Freya’s relationship with her two best friends and with her father and brother. The side characters really made this book for me, even Freya’s other friends.

I will say that it starts off a bit slow, so if you’re about 30% in and wondering when she’s going to stop wallowing, I encourage you to keep going. Once Freya and her friends make the Wedding Season Survival Plan is when it starts to get good. The reader follows Freya to seven weddings in the weeks following her breakup, and her friends have come up with increasingly ridiculous tasks for her to accomplish in order to help her forget about her ex.

My only complaint is that I would have liked more romance. It is important to note that this isn’t really a romance as the cover makes it seem. It’s more character growth, friendship fiction, and women’s fiction. I wouldn’t read this one leading up to your wedding, but if you’re looking for a great story about friendship, certainly pick up The Wedding Season.

Audio Review: I really liked this narrator, and thought her bubbly voice was the perfect match for Freya’s personality. I would certainly listen to more productions from her. This audiobook was an easy listen, so I was able to turn up the speed to get to more of Freya’s shenanigans sooner!

3 stars

One of the reasons I so enjoyed my last Birchall read was that I went in expecting romance and was pleasantly surprised to find what I definitely consider to be more accurately women's fiction. I believe the same is the case with _The Wedding Season_.

It's true that the novel has a backdrop of weddings and the main character's (Freya's) grappling with her own romantic life, but the center of this novel is much more about Freya's growth than her joint development of a romantic relationship with a partner. Readers meet Freya just hours before she is supposed to get married to her very long-time partner and then watch as that aforementioned partner drops some pretty wild intelligence bombs and destroys everything (or - as the case is constantly with this kind of scenario - maybe does the right thing in the wrong way). Freya *understandably* has a lot to work through, and the entire novel is about that: a breakup, a reckoning, and a question about how to move forward.

I think this novel is going to resonate in powerful ways with folks who have experienced a terrible breakup recently and/or who have one from long ago that still includes a fresh wound. As I'm not in either group, I found the process of reading to be akin to supporting a pal who is going through something like this. We learn details, listen to a lot of Freya's questioning and processing, and hope Freya will come to some of the realizations that might've been clear to outsiders quickly. I didn't feel like there was much in the way of fresh or surprising takes here, but I did find this to be an entertaining listen in the background of a lot of weekend chores. Prospective readers should come for Freya's self-discovery and processing versus a traditional romance.

Pros: This British rom com (a PG-rated, enemies to lovers trope) is light and charming, and I think it would make such a fun movie. My favorite part of this book is the role that the friend characters played in the setup of the plot—after a woman is dumped the day before her wedding, her friends create a list of challenges for her to complete as distractions at the seven weddings she attends in the weeks after. Reading this book made me jealous of a British wedding season where it’s easy to pop over to France or Ireland for a wedding weekend and that weddings closer to home are held in castles.

I switched back and forth from the audiobook and kindle versions of this book and thought both formats were great.

Cons: None really. This book was just what I was expecting (in a good way) from the genre.

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and listen to this book.

I’ve shared this review on Goodreads and StoryGraph.