*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: October 17, 2023

What happens when you RSVP to your sisters wedding that you’re bringing a date (that they think is a woman, when in reality you’re gay) only to have your friend bail? Well, you hire a drag queen of course! This definitely gave some old school wedding romcom vibes and a fake dating trope is always fun, but I wanted more details and relationship development to fully invest in these characters!

[I received a digital arc for an honest review]

Dragged to the Wedding by Andrew Grey is a new standalone MM romance. James is dreading going home to face his conservative church going family for his sister’s wedding. To avoid the pressure of all the single women being pushed his way he takes a chance by bringing drag queen extraordinaire Daniel ‘Daniella Lala Traviata’ Bonafonte. Daniel needs the money while his usual club is being worked on so he agrees to the charade as long as everything stays professional. Unfortunately the two men find themselves thrust into all kinds of wedding chaos, family drama and inconvenient feelings. James is already taking a huge gamble bringing Daniel home so when truths are exposed, will the two see anything beyond just a crazy wedding week.

I was very excited at the premise of this book because: drag queens (check), fake dating trope (check), one bed/forced proximity (check). Unfortunately although this book had the making of a slam dunk for me the characters fell a bit short. James is a grown man and a police officer who is too afraid of his conservative family to be his true self. His fears of losing those he loves is completely understandable but how he approaches his problems left me a little put off. I enjoyed Daniel more. He was authentically himself and refused to bow down to any kind of societal expectation. He was the hero in so many ways for the wedding. Did I believe them as a couple, nope. Unfortunately their connection and even steam didn’t work for me so when strong feelings were expressed it left me scratching my head a bit. Believe me I wanted to enjoy this book but alas it fell short.

2.5 stars for James and Daniel falling for their own charade.

I was prepared for this to be one of the best books of the year for me. We have fake dating, secret identity, going home to Montana, secret hookups, and all of it will be done backwards and in heels.

James' family doesn't know he's gay and to buy some time, he comes up with the idea to take a fake girlfriend to his sister's wedding. He's introduced to a friend of a friend, Daniel, also known as Lala, a drag queen he can't take his eyes off of. "Daniela" agrees to accompany him to this disaster of a wedding. While in Montana as Daniela, a ton of things pop up that end up being corrected by James' girlfriend from the flowers, to the officiant, to completely tailoring the wedding dress at the last minute.

Of course, everything goes wrong but the thing I felt went the most wrong was that I never felt like they clicked emotionally at all. Definitely physical chemistry but they never really seemed to talk about anything. Daniel never really got to be Daniel in the whole mess of a situation and I wanted to see him outside of being on and in character and vulnerable with James.

Forgive my pronouns if they're off - I tried to do she when the character was Daniela or Lala, and he when they were Daniel.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974


Fans of the Birdcage will love this book. There are common themes but different stories. James needs a date for a wedding, Daniela agrees to accompany him, for a fee of course. No one can predict what happens when Daniela meets James'family.

This one sitting read will pull you in. It's funny, makes you consider your own biases and has a bit of romance thrown in.

James Petika is a Chicago cop, enjoying his anonymity in the big city, half a country away from his intrusive family in Montana. James is out in his personal life, but not to his family, which causes conflict because his mom is always after him to settle down with a nice woman. Now that his younger sister Holly is getting married, James is expected to show up with a plus one–and he doesn’t have anyone to take. His buddy connects James with Daniel Bonafonte, a notable drag queen, who offers to take a job pretending to be his girlfriend while staying with James’ family.

“Daniella” didn’t expect they’d be staying 24/7 with James’ family and need to remain in drag for nearly a week, but James’ mom really wants that closeness. And, well, his mom is meddling with so many of Holly’s wedding plans that James and Daniel have their hands full repairing all the damages she’s wrought. Add in some nasty bridal party members and a crooked preacher, and this visit to the folks may turn into trouble.

One thing I really liked about the story was the family dynamic, where the God-fearing mom has to face the cold truth that she’s alienated her children to the point they don’t want to be around her. James’ internalized homophobia is on full display, and this trip, plus his age and experience, gives him that strength to come to terms with himself, and come clean to his family. He’s so awed by Daniel’s skills, charm, and beautiful soul that he’s captivated by the way Daniel handles all the many crises that interrupt the festivities.

There’s a lot of other stuff happening in the plot, but the love between siblings was a shining beacon, and my favorite part of the story. They have each other’s backs, and that means a lot in this family. Daniel is a great character and I really found myself immersed in his POV chapters, as he’s so pragmatic. His ability to save the day goes beyond the anticipated, so it was surprising how quickly he seemed to give up on himself when things got really contentious. That said, James finally has the chance to be his own hero, and risk his comfortable closet to support Daniel. His choice definitely heralded a happy life for both men, but also made way for reconciliation and further improvement of the familial relationships.

The pacing on the story was great, and this fake relationship romance had all the elements of a wedding disaster rom-com. It’s a fun read with some moments of deeper conflict and an equitable resolution. Definitely recommend.

I'd give this book 50 stars if I could. While the storyline is far from original, the journey to the end was absolutely enchanting. I haven't been excited to return to a book in a while and I looked forward to getting back into this one at the end of the day.

The story is about a young man, James, who is a police officer in a suburb of Chicago. He hails from an ultra-conservative family in Montana and his eldest sister is getting married. He takes a Drag Queen, Lala Traviata (aka Daniel Belafonte) who agrees to be his female companion to appease his overbearing mother. Per the usual (yet charming) trope, the two men fall head over heels for each other. Of course, there is the nefarious villain who tries to ruin everything... you'll just have to read to find out.

The characters in this book, both likeable and unlikable, are rich in development and you can actually see them as real people. I did think part of the plot could have been handled a little better (no spoilers - don't want to give everything away) but overall it was an absolute joy to read. I would definitely read it again.

My thanks to Carina Adores and Netgalley for this ARC. I promise my gushy feelings are my own

***** I have received and read an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for giving my honest feedback. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.*****

When I first read the description, my first idea was of the Debra Messing movie "The Wedding Date" crossed with Robin Williams "The Birdcage".

And I wasn't disappointed.

This book takes all the good parts from those movies, adds in even more awesomeness, and throws in so many laughs that I couldn't eat or drink anything for fear of choking.

If this isn't made into a movie, I'm going to be so disappointed that I might even try to raise the money and make this into a movie myself.

The concept for this book was really interesting, but overall I found this book to be pretty “meh”. The plot was super chaotic that it was never fully clear what the main point was intended to be. I admit to really liking parts of the story (James and Daniel’s relationship being a big one), but it genuinely felt like many of the parts just didn’t go together.

I was given an ARC by NetGalley and Carina Adores. All opinions are my own.

▪️B O O K R E V I E W▪️

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 - "Dragged To The Wedding" by @andrewgreybooks

"𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘢𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴."

So, I'm several days late on this review post because I was packing and prepping for our trip, and then we spent yesterday flying and walking around Chandler LOL

But thanks to the time difference, I'm up bright and early Arizona time, so I planted myself at a coffee shop and working on some stuff 😅

I personally thought this was a wonderful story overall. There are several times I wanted to literally crawl through the book and choke out some of these characters, but I suppose that means they're written well LOL

I thought the heavier topics were handled with grace and poise, and you had the entertainment element as well! And of course, you get your happy ending, as you should!

Thank you to Carina Press, @harlequinbooks and @netgalley for my advanced copy in exchange for this review!
.
.
.
.
#bookstagram #booksta #books #booksbooksbooks #avidreader #ilovereading #thetwistedlibrarian #professionalbookworm #draggedtothewedding #andrewgray #whatsnikkireading #book74of2023 #lgbtqiap #romance #harlequinbooks #carinapress #netgally #arc #advancedreadercopy

Dear Andrew Grey,

I generally like a fake relationship story. For me it’s the modern equivalent of a marriage of convenience in many ways and forced proximity usually means a lot of the love interests together which also suits me. But I probably didn’t think through where the premise of Dragged to the Wedding would inevitably take me. James Petika is a Chicago policeman who is going home to Missoula, Montana, to his sister’s wedding. He is gay but isn’t out to his very conservative family. His mother, in particular, is a force of nature and he wants to keep her off his back about “marrying a nice girl and settling down” while he’s home. His friend introduces him to “Daniella” – who turns out to be Daniel Bonafonte, an entertainer who performs as drag queen Lala Traviata. Daniel can tone down the drag makeup and pass as female and James ends up agreeing to pay Daniel $1,000 to be his fake date to the wedding, the festivities for which involve six days of family gatherings.

Daniel is not trans. When James introduces Daniella to his family he is not only lying to them about his relationship status, both he and Daniel are actively involved in a deception which can only end in tears once Daniel’s gender is revealed (and of course it will be). It’s one thing to pretend to be in a relationship but this deception takes things to another level. Had Daniel been trans and therefore actually been Daniella I would not have had this discomfort with the story – as Daniella would not have been lying about who she was. But Daniel is pretending to be a woman and it’s easy to see how James’s family would feel humiliated and hurt at being deceived that way. As I read through the book, my realisation crystallised of just how badly the people I was supposed to be rooting for were behaving.

I found the writing style generally choppy and there were a number of times when an idea was introduced that was never resolved. For instance:

James could not explain to his father exactly what was going on, and that was part of the problem. He didn’t know what was real and what was an act any longer. This was all his fault, and now he had to find his way through this minefield of dresses, makeup, and deception all on his own.

“Ah, I see,” his father whispered knowingly as he sat forward. “I thought that I recognized something was amiss. You’re not telling us everything about Daniella, are you? You know, if you look closely enough, it’s pretty obvious.” His gaze bored into James, and for an instant he felt completely exposed and vulnerable. A cold chill ran up his back, and James held his hands together just to keep them from shaking.

“I…” He opened his mouth to try to explain, but his father continued. This was his worst nightmare. James’s mind raced in a million directions at once.

His father looked toward the kitchen and motioned for James to come closer. “What were you thinking?” The tone was barely above a whisper and knife sharp, and James lowered his gaze. “I’m not stupid, and don’t think for a second that I condone this type of thing. Lying to your mother…”

“Dad, I… There are things that you don’t know.” The ground beneath his feet turned to quicksand in a second, his heart raced, and James could almost feel the end of his life with his family approaching like a freight train.

His father’s face transformed with a smile. “You really care for this girl,” he said. “I can see it.”

“What?” James tried to make his head shift gears in a second as relief warred with the idea that he should just come clean and tell his father everything.

I still do not know what James’s dad was actually on about and nothing in the text that followed told me. I had quite a few instances of mental whiplash where I asked myself “what just happened?” I felt like key information was missing. If it had been a paperback I would have been tempted to shake it to see if any extra pages fell out.

James’s mother, Grace, is something of a caricature but she’s also a bit inconsistently drawn. Every now and then she will come out with something positively risque or be permissive of something unexpected, but most of the time she’s the stereotypical “no sex before marriage” super conservative Christian often depicted in media (and often found in real life too if social media is anything to go by). She’s also a mother-of-the-bride-zilla. She changes the order of service to suit herself, she changes the wedding dress order (when the dress was one the bride did not super-love in the first place) so it does not fit. (Aside: what kind of wedding dress seller would allow that??) She did not truly deal with actual consequences for this outrageous behaviour either. Fortunately, Daniel is a whiz on a sewing machine and (somewhat very unbelievably) he alters the oversized wedding gown in the space of 24 hours so it fits like a dream and James’s sister walks down the aisle as the princess she always wanted to be.

Between problems with the wedding and an obnoxious best man who keeps hitting on Daniella, a shady pastor and avoiding the truth coming out to James’s family, Daniel and James fight their burgeoning attraction. Well, they fight it for a while. Then they don’t. (Which, honestly, is fine.) It’s just that there’s an awful lot going on in a book which came in at 184 pages on my ereader. There were too many concepts and storylines for any of them to really get the attention they deserved and that included the romance.

And, when the big reveal inevitably occurred, neither James nor Daniel truly appreciated their own fault. James in particular leapt to blame his mother for being so demanding he felt forced to bring Daniel-dressed-as-Daniella to the wedding so really it’s all her own fault and then the conflict swiftly moves to being about Grace’s homophobia. Truly, I felt James and Daniel owed James’s family a very sincere, grovelling apology but it did not happen. And, then, everyone got over it way too quickly for it to be remotely realistic.

I won’t give away the ending but I found it only added to the unreality of it all.

There were things I did like. For instance, I liked how James, apart from their very first meeting, always saw through whatever Daniel was wearing to the man underneath. He was unashamedly attracted to Daniel whether he was wearing a dress and heels and full makeup, was in full drag regalia as Lala or, presenting as Daniel in a t-shirt and jeans. There was something about that I found charming because it was presented as him really seeing the person he cared for. James just saw Daniel. I liked that James was not only unfazed by dating a drag queen, he actively reveled in it. I liked how he only had admiration for Daniel’s talent and skill.

Unfortunately a lot of other things didn’t work for me and Dragged to the Wedding was a disappointment.

Grade: C-

Regards,
Kaetrin

Audiobook Review:
Overall – 5
Performance – 5
Story – 5

Great audio performance and fun story.

It’s not often that listening to a book will move my emotions as much as when I read it with my eyes but Joel Leslie is a master at what he does which is giving a great performance. He had me LOL-ing and tearing up more than once as I listened to this book. I enjoyed Dragged to the Wedding when I started reading it with my eyes but I hadn’t finished when the audiobook became available on Hoopla. I immediately downloaded it and started listening.

Andrew Grey writes a wide variety of MM romance from romantic suspense to rom-com and Dragged to the Wedding is one of the latter. There were some LOL funny scenes but there were also a lot of tender and serious moments.

James isn’t out to his family so he hires Daniel to be his date for his sister’s wedding. That is, he hires Lala Traviata, Daniel’s drag queen persona to be his date. As you would expect with a rom-com, things go very wrong. James’ mother has done several things to make her daughter’s wedding go awry but Daniel/Lala saves the day more than once.

I enjoyed reading and listening to this book so much. I was moved to tears when James finally confronted his parents and stood up for Lala. The story has a wonderful HEA and the epilogue was just perfect.

A review copy of the ebook was provided by the publisher via NetGalley but this did not influence my opinion or rating of the book.

This one was quite a bit of fun to read. I couldn't help but get pulled into this story almost from the start. It was worth reading.

I received an ARC and this is my unbiased opinion

While this may seem to be a fun, almost fluffy story, there is so much more depth to this fake relationship, date for the wedding story. Both James and Daniel have some emotional baggage to unpack and it seems, so does James' family. Trying to be someone you are not is often so exhausting. Trying to control everyone around you (aka Mom's commandments) will only create more strife. “You changing the way you are eliminates the conflict." While everyone walks on eggshells in order to accommodate one person, others are being left behind or forced to live lives they would rather not. Getting past all this makes this journey one worth reading.

This was short, sweet, and to the point. The writing style made it feel a little more YA, which is ok!, but something I wasn’t necessarily expecting. I enjoyed the representation and small insights into drag culture. Overall, I liked this book.

Thank you to the public for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Straight-laced and closeted cop needs a beard for his sister's small town wedding and his bestie hooks him up with Daniella... aka Daniel... aka Lala and James doesn't know what hits him!

I love how adaptable and roll with the punches Daniel is, and just how much he puts up with from James and his family.... and how, predictably he and James are attracted to each other... so much drama, so much more drama averted... I also love how flexible James proves to be and how he realizes what's important to him.

Dragged to the Wedding was a fun and refreshing read. If you're looking for a story that hods your attention, makes you smile and occasionally laugh out loud, but hits you in the sweetness feels, you're going to want to add Dragged to the Wedding to your TBR.

One of the funniest MM rom-com I read this year: Daniel is fabolous, James is sweet and there's a lot of fun and a good romance.
Well plotted and highly entertaining
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Dragged to the Wedding by Andrew Grey was an incredibly amazing romance story.
This m/m romance was just what I needed to get me out of my reading slump.
A cute romance between a drag Queen and a cop…… what’s not to freaking love!?
Daniel and James were adorable.
This was a fun and charming read that stole my heart and had me tearing up.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Carina Press & Carina Adores (Harlequin) for the opportunity to read this ahead of its publication date in return for my honest review.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this very funny book

james is in big trouble

hes got to go to his sisters wedding with a plus one only he doesnt have a plus one

also the fact his family do not know he is gay and are expecting his plus one to be female is also a big nightmare

enter Daniel Bonafonte aka Lala Traviata, the queen of the Chicago drag scene , after fooling james when they first met an idea is born and one that could get james out of his nightmare scenario with his family

this is the funniest book i have read for a while and though it does cover some serious issues this book is well worth reading and also for keeping an eye out for more of this authors works

In Chicago, James enjoys a single gay life, free from his family's expectations. But to keep his sexuality secret at his sister's Montana wedding, he needs a decoy date. Enter Lala Traviata, the drag alter ego of talented Daniel. As they pretend to be a couple, will real emotions grow between them?

This is very cute. It's got witty banter that rom com lovers will adore, plus wedding drama, lovable characters, and awkward parents.

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

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of Dragged to the Wedding by Andrew Grey!