Wedding Dashers - Softcover

McBreen, Heather

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593817621 ISBN 13: 9780593817629

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

After a case of mistaken identity and an almost one-night stand, two stranded wedding guests have to find their way to their final destination together, in this riotously fun debut romance.

Ada’s little sister is getting married. Which should be a happy thought, right? But the once close sisters have been in a year long fight, the wedding is all the way in Ireland, and Ada is so broke that she just barely managed to get a ticket on a budget airline. And as if things couldn’t get worse, said airline just cancelled her connection. Which means Ada is stuck in London with no way to make it to the wedding.

Surely she’s hit rock bottom?

So, there’s no reason for her not to spill her heart out about the over-the-top wedding, her sister’s worryingly quick engagement, and the womanizing best man she’s dreading meeting to a handsome also-stranded stranger at the bar. Until she realizes the stranger is headed to the same wedding. Oh, and he’s the infamous best man.

Now, Jack and Ada must put their simmering attraction behind them to make it to Belfast before they miss the nuptials. But between flat tires, missed trains, and suspect hostels, Jack and Ada start to question whether their feelings are worth going the distance, or just a distracting detour along the way.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Heather McBreen currently lives in Seattle, WA, but spent the best year of her life living in London where she completed an MA degree in arts and cultural management. When she's not writing or reading books about kissing, she can be found surfing the web for travel deals and plotting her next adventure. Wedding Dashers is her debut novel.

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Chapter 1

83 hours until the wedding

I stare at the flight display, weighing the likelihood that I'm currently experiencing some kind of jet lag-induced delirium, or if my connecting flight from London to Belfast really is canceled. I blink a few times just to be sure, but in angry red letters the word canceled continues to flash aggressively across the screen.

The remnants of a partially digested bag of airline pretzels churn inside my stomach and for a brief moment I wonder if they're about to make a reappearance.

How could this be happening? I double-, no, triple-checked the departure schedule before I left. But apparently sometime while I was flying over the Atlantic, the universe-or more specifically the shady budget airline I booked last minute-conspired to ruin my life.

But of course this happened. Because this is just one more ill-fated domino in a series of unfortunate events. Perhaps I ought to just accept my fate as a serially unlucky person. Throw in the towel now and resign myself to the life of a quirky heroine in an early 2000s chick flick . . . before she gets the makeover.

I wipe clammy hands against my jeans and try to focus. There must be a solution. Maybe there's an open seat on another flight. Or maybe I could ride in the cockpit. They let people do that, right? I mean I'm sure if I explain the situation . . .

But the longer I stare at the display screen, the more my chest feels like a hollowed-out pumpkin.

If I don't make it to this wedding on time, Allison is going to kill me. Not in a hyperbolic sense-my sister is literally going to murder me and ask her soon-to-be husband, Collin, to help her bury my body, and I'll end up as the subject of one of those murder podcasts Gen Z is obsessed with.

And not because she can't bear to get married without me, her beloved older sister, by her side. It's because I am carrying precious cargo. The veil. And not just any veil, but a one-of-a-kind Demi Karina custom veil.

Allison would have carried it herself, but with seventeen dresses, ten pairs of heels (one might break!), more makeup than a fully stocked Sephora, and enough cans of hair spray to single-handedly destroy the ozone, I, as the maid of honor, got tasked with transporting the veil. Which doesn't feel like an honor so much as a death wish.

I cast the garment bag under my left arm a scathing look as though it were the veil's fault we're in this mess. But I know perfectly well the real culprit in this shitstorm sandwich is the castle. The overpriced, out-of-budget, embarrassingly extravagant castle.

Why couldn't Allison get married in a chic barn like everyone else in the Greater Seattle area? Somewhere rustic yet tasteful. Somewhere not six thousand miles away.

But no. It had to be a castle. And not just any castle-a castle in abso-freaking-lutely-nowhere Ireland. Inconvenience to others be damned.

So now I'm trapped on the wrong island with no clue how I or this veil will make it to this wedding.

So much for traveling to the land of luck.

Shoulders slouched, I make my way to the customer service desk clinging to my last shred of optimism that this is all just a silly misunderstanding and I'll be on the next flight to Ireland in no time.

But it's not.

"There's been a staffing mix-up with the airline," the clerk tells me, tone strained, like it might be the three hundredth time she's recited that line today. "All flights on this route have been canceled."

My stomach dips. A mix-up? I'm about to miss my little sister's wedding and be cursed for all eternity because of something as random and arbitrary as a staffing mix-up?

"Please," I plead. "My sister is getting married. I have to be on that flight."

"Is your final destination Belfast?" the clerk asks.

"Yes," I tell her. And it's gonna be six feet under if I don't get there on time.

The clerk shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I don't have anything. But in the meantime, please take a seat and I'll let you know if something opens up."

If.

The single syllable sends a new jolt of anxiety hurtling through me.

I want to ask her what happens if she doesn't find anything. What then? Will I have to rent a boat? Swim to Ireland? Flirt my way onto a rich person's private jet? I shoot a quick glance over my shoulder, halfway hoping there might be some such person, until I remember that the kind of people who own private jets usually aren't hanging around the customer service desks of obscure budget airlines that offer major discounts on both prices and legroom.

I force a smile and thank the clerk before slumping into the only available plastic seat, which-as luck would have it-is beside a young couple who is making out like the world is burning down around them. Really?

I don't know whether to hate or envy that a canceled flight and an airport full of disgruntled travelers does nothing to curb their passion. Must be nice.

Trying to distract myself, I connect to wi-fi and check my email. I expect the usual slew of Bed Bath & Beyond coupons and lengthy newsletters I've been meaning to unsubscribe from. Instead, there's only one email, from a design firm I interviewed with weeks ago. My heartbeat ratchets up, and my fingers scramble to open the email.

Dear Miss Ada Gallman,

Thank you so much for taking the time to interview with Hewitt & Goldstein. We had many incredibly qualified applicants for the role of graphic designer, and unfortunately . . .

I don't finish reading. Instead, I close my email tab and try to ignore the impending sense of doom that's settled in my gut ever since the tattoo studio I opened-Sleeve It to Me-went under nine months ago. But like an old injury, I can ignore it for a little while, until the reality that I'm twenty-eight, unemployed, broke, steeped in business loan debt, and sleeping on my parents' couch flares up once more.

I sigh and slump lower in my seat, halfway hoping the cold, unforgiving plastic might just swallow me whole, when my phone vibrates, announcing all the texts I missed while I was flying over the Atlantic.

2:17pm Mom
Have you landed? What time will you be here?

2:17pm Mom
Watch out for pickpockets! Did you bring that money belt I told you to?

2:18pm Mom
Check out this apartment listing on Zillow!

5:06pm Allison
You have the veil, right?

5:08pm Allison
Tell me you have the veil???

5:09pm Allison
When are you getting here?

5:29pm Allison
Mom is being so annoying. I swear if she asks me about the seating chart one more time I'm gonna lose it.

5:37pm Allison
FYI Mom is considering applying for you to be
on The Bachelor. I told her it was weird that one guy dates thirty-two women simultaneously,
but she won't drop it. She thinks you're gonna
die alone.

6:47pm Mom
I heard Dan's company is hiring. Have you thought about doing interior design? That's kind of the same thing, right?

6:53pm Mom
Remember Karen and Scott's son? The engineer? He'll be at the wedding! And he's still single!

I don't think my mom pitching the neighbor's son as still single-like he's a bargain bin closeout item marked down to its lowest sale price yet-is the rave review she thinks it is, but I don't respond. I'm too focused on another text. One from him.

1:37pm Carter
Let me know when you've made it safely to Belfast. Hope you have a great trip. x

I stare at the x. It's mocking me. What does that x mean? That he thinks it was a huge mistake to take a break and we should get back together? Or a platonic kiss on the cheek? Short for ex-boyfriend? A typo? Solve for x?

I wish I knew. But apparently even after eight years together, I still don't know him...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593817621
• ISBN 13: 9780593817629
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 400
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: BERKLEY; https://www.penguin.com/?s=BERKLEY; ; Unit 2 Limavady Business Park; Limavady; County Londonderry; BT49 0HR; Vereinigtes Königreich
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar