cover image Daughters of the Bride

Daughters of the Bride

Susan Mallery. Harlequin, $26.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-373-78971-9

Mallery (the Fool’s Gold series) enthralls readers with this introduction to the small seaside community of Los Lobos, Calif., as she follows the lives of a bride’s three daughters. Maggie Watson is getting married again almost 24 years after being widowed. She wishes that her daughter Courtney could do better than working as a maid at the Los Lobos Hotel, but she doesn’t realize that Courtney does much more than a maid’s work. Maggie’s daughter Rachel is a talented hairdresser who is still in love with her ex-husband and is surprised when he begins pitching in to help her out. And middle daughter Sienna enjoys her work for a nonprofit that assists women who are escaping domestic violence. While Maggie enthusiastically plans her wedding with plenty of variations of pink, Courtney is embarking on a romance with a sexy music producer who happens to be the grandson of her boss, Rachel and her ex begin to make tentative steps toward reconciling, and Sienna stuns herself by agreeing to marry her boyfriend. Mallery thoroughly involves readers in the lives of her characters as they face realistic, believable problems and search for their own happy endings. (July)