The Wedding People

Phoebe Stone arrives at the Cornwall Inn, a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island, in her best dress and her least comfortable shoes, and is promptly taken for one of the wedding people. She isn't. She is the only guest not there for the big event, and she has come divorced, depressed and with plans of her own. Lila, the bride, has spent months preparing for every possible disaster, but nobody warned her about Phoebe.

What follows is a comedy of two women whose careful plans come apart, and who find in each other the confidante neither expected. Alison Espach writes about love, friendship and difficult families with a light touch and real warmth, and the novel won the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction. For anyone who likes their laughter with a lump in the throat.