A Wedding Invitation

I recently read A Wedding Invitation by Alice J. Wisler. Samantha Bravencourt lives in Washington, D.C. and works at her mother’s clothing boutique. She appears content with her life, but frequently reminisces about the time she spent teaching in a Philippines refugee camp. A wedding invitation is indeed the catalyst for the story – Sam receives what she thinks is an invitation to the wedding of an old friend. The wedding is in Winston-Salem, NC, where Sam’s mother is from and her aunt still lives. Turns out that she ends up at the wrong wedding – but while there meets a nice guy who is a PI in Washington, D.C.

While in North Carolina, she also reconnects with Carson, a fellow teacher she had a crush on in the Phillipines, and Lien, a girl from the refugee camp who now lives with her brother, aunt and uncle in North Carolina.

The story alternates between the present day (1993 in the story) and the time Samantha and Carson spent at the refugee camp (1985). While the alternating stories provided an interesting element to the story, I thought it also made the story somewhat hard to follow.

Throughout the book, the stories of Samantha, Carson, Lien and the PI are woven together. The author does a good job of adding twists the story, veering off the predictability path every so often to keep you second-guessing if the anticipated ending actually occurs.  

I personally found this book to be a somewhat slow read. I was expecting it to move along at a faster clip. I also found the secondary characters in the book to be much more interesting than the main character, Samantha. In fact, I kept thinking that I wished the main plot of the story was about Samantha’s empathetic Aunt Dovie and her eccentric cast of boarders.

All in all, a light read that fits well in the chick lit genre. It would be a good book for a rainy afternoon or a day at the pool. The different plots in the story might also make it a good fit for a book club. I give it 2 ½ stars – I liked it, but it was not a “can’t wait to find out what happens next” book for me.

I received this book from Bethany House publishers in exchange for an honest review.