Mallory Shepard s wedding planning business is off to a shaky start when a member of the bridal family drops dead at a food tasting . . .”

Mallory hopes to unveil her new B&B just in time for her first ceremony as a wedding planner. The renovations to Thistle Park the mansion she inherited in small-town Port Quincy, Pennsylvania are almost complete. But what Mallory didn’t plan on is the bride s aunt being poisoned at the wedding tasting and her perfect venue becoming a crime scene.

Adding to the mystery is the discovery that this is not the first murder in the bridal family, and as Mallory becomes engaged in her own investigation she learns the man convicted of the crime may not be guilty. Now she has two crimes to solve before the bride walks down the aisle but a killer has other plans to ensure that Mallory forever holds her peace . . .

So this is one of those books that has left me really torn about how I feel about it. It’s been a few months since I read the premiere book for this series and it took me a minute to reconnect the storyline in my head. Mallory is moving forward with her plans to renovate Thistle Park into a B&B and with the help of her friends and sister, she’s hoping to get it all finished in time to host a wedding. For someone reason, I didn’t connect with Mallory in this book. I feel that hindered my ability to move from liking the book to loving it. But the book itself suffered from something else that hindered my opinion of it… too many plot lines.

I’m a firm believer that less is more and though I know a lot of books feature a main plot or two and a side plot or two, this one seemed to feature at least a half dozen plot lines. Some of them converge over time, but I constantly felt like I was jumping from one story line to another. It was kind of distracting and though I like how the plot lines worked out, I felt a few of them could have been saved for future books. For example, it was not necessary to introduce Garrett’s ex in this book. This and the plot line or two that it connect to, could have been used in the next book. I suppose this is just a personal preference, but I wish there had been more focus on Lois’ death and the crime from the past.

Overall, I like the series and I know that second books tend to struggle to live up to its predecessor. Regardless of my personal wish for more focus and less story lines, I look forward to reading the next book in the series and I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble the residents of Port Quincy stir up next time!

Reviewer’s note: I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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