A review by diversifyyourreading
The Almost Wife by Jade Beer

4.0

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my ARC of The Almost Wife!

The Almost Wife follows three brides to be and the widowed owner of the bridal boutique where they all purchase their dresses. It's also set in the Cotswolds, so it was bound to be a book I fell in love with!

After planning my own wedding, I absolutely love researching wedding venues and helping with plans for friends getting married. In fact, I'd love to start my own wedding planning business one day, so the topic of this book was perfect. But Jade Beer took it one step further and gave us a real look into the pre-wedding lives of three very different women.

Three very different women and three very different relationships, and we know going into it that only one of them gets married. That little mystery took this lovely book about female bonding and added a bit of spice to it, and I tried to determine which girls wouldn't be getting married as I progressed through the book.

We also have Helen, the boutique owner, who is heartbroken over the death of her husband years ago, yet spends her entire day with women about to marry their own loves. I have so much love Helen; so much that I want to go to the Cotswolds and find a Helen of my own to confide in.

I spent the majority of this book frustrated with one bride or another (Jessica, most of the time), but absolutely loved following their growth and watching as their lives intersected and bonding with Helen alongside them as they confided in her. It's a truly beautiful story of growth and friendship and I found it to be incredibly well-written.

This is a great, easy summer read if you're looking for something different than your typical summer rom-com! Fingers crossed that Beer writes more about brides in the future!