The Shocking Secret of a Guest at the Wedding

The Shocking Secret of a Guest at the Wedding
Victoria Alexander
Zebra
Toronto, Ontario-Canada
ISBN: 978-1420132267
Mass Market Paperback
October 2014
$ 7.99
400 pages

'Plato wrote that originally men and women were one creature but their strength threatened the gods.  So Zeus split them in half and each half spends it life trying to find its mate.  To become complete once again.'

Does each person spend their life looking for their other half?  Is fate involved in each of our lives?

The unexpected guest at the wedding is Jackson Quincy Graham Channing who is visiting England for the first time.  As a banker in New York, this journey is somewhat of a surprise to Jackson who just discovered that his long departed father is alive.   His mother choose for Jackson to believe for thirty years that his father was deceased.   Now that father and son are reunited, he is excited and thrilled to meet his family on his father's side while also giving himself some space due to his anger with his mother.

Fortunately for Jack, he has an inherited title and family wealth on his father's side. What a wonderful opportunity for him.  Where will he finally live?

Jack also has an intended love in New York, Lucy.  The two have grown up together and are each other's best friends.  Even though their family's see that the two are likely to be married, each of them are hesitant to actually marry. 

Jack arrives in England meeting his new family at a family wedding for Camille, Lady Lydingham to Grayson Elliott.   As a newcomer, he obviously is unacquainted with his cousins but is drawn to Lady Theodosia Winslow who has secrets of her own.

Theodosia, Teddy with her mother plans weddings and major events for the wealthy.   Yes, she is one of them, but when her father died, he left his wife and daughter with immense debt.  This is one of Teddy's secrets that has driven her to work to pay off his debts while appearing not to need the money.

Yes, admittedly this is my first Victoria Alexander novel.   She is a legend among romance writers.  Much of the novel is dialogue that argues, teases, discusses and reveals much of the characters and how the intended couple grows slowly closer together.  At times, it feels that there is no action, just dialogue which is likely realistic.  

Victoria Alexander has worked as an award winning television reporter and journalist before she decided to become a full-time writer in Omaha, Nebraska.  In 1995, she had her first book published and has successfully published thirty-one novels in the romance genre.  

I was surprised at the constant twists in the story making the predictable romance interesting until the last page.  Some of these twists do feel contrived but in this particular story, they are enjoyable with many loose ends neatly concluding at the end.