Library Loot Review: The Best Man to Trust

After reading The Perfect Bride by Kerry Connor for October's Gothic/Spooky TBR Challenge, I was curious enough to wrap things up by reading the second book in the duet, The Best Man to Trust. Like the first one, it hit me with all the nostalgic feels and the locked room-style mystery kept the pages turning.

Despite the events of the first book (one dead bride, one dead murderer), Meredith Sutton is still determined to make her wedding planning business and venue at Sutton Hall work. She just needs one wedding. One wedding that goes off without a hitch and turns out beautifully. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, her date book is littered with cancellations, except for one. Two former college acquaintances are getting married and the bride is determined to have her small, intimate wedding at Sutton Hall.  Just her, the groom, and a few friends. One of those friends? Tom Campbell, a guy that Meredith had a serious crush on in college and naturally he had no clue she even existed. Of course he's more handsome than ever, but Meredith cannot let herself get distracted. This wedding needs to be perfect.

Of course on the day the wedding party is supposed to arrive a snow storm blows into the Vermont countryside. Meredith is half expecting the party to stay in the nearest town, but somehow they make it up the mountain and the wedding is going to proceed as scheduled. But the snow keeps falling, cell phone reception goes on the fritz, and the landline gets knocked out. That's when the bodies start dropping. 

Poor Meredith. A big reason she's determined to make this business succeed is that she's desperate for a fresh start. She married her college sweetheart who turned out to be an abusive asshole. When her brother (the hero in our first book) finally figures out what's going on, Meredith is in the hospital. He, essentially, swoops in to rescue her, and Meredith is determined to move on from her past. To stand on her own two feet. To be strong, resilient, to not need "rescuing." She's thrown into the fire once the first dead body turns up, her brother and his girlfriend being out of town. Meredith is going to have to keep everyone safe, and keep the guests from panicking, until help can arrive. 

Tom is the friend of the group who had drifted away after college. In fact it's only a last minute change in his plans (minor detail, the TV show he was working on as a cameraman got cancelled - ergo he's currently unemployed) that has him attending the wedding of his old friends. He's immediately drawn to Meredith and once the first murder occurs, they both realize that pairing up for safety is the smart thing to do. They also need to figure out what's going on and keep everyone safe. Why would anyone want to murder one of the bridesmaids? Are there dark secrets among these old friends or is someone on Meredith's small staff the culprit?

The mystery has a locked room feel to it with slight shades of Christie's And Then There Were None (although you don't hate everybody). I realize dead bodies aren't exactly "light reading" but like the first book this one gave off lighter Scooby Doo vibes for me and hit me in all the nostalgic feels.  Teenage Wendy would have loved this, and Adult Wendy had a good time reading it.

The romance here is thin.  Meredith and Tom are both nice people and I do believe they're attracted to each other, but there's not nearly the sizzle of chemistry as the first book in this duet. It's not bad, I'm not even sure it's "flat," but it's not as compelling as the mystery, which is what kept me turning the pages.

Did this change my life? No. But did I have a good time reading it? Yes, I did. It kept me engaged while I was traveling recently and I was really invested to find out whodunit. All in all, not a bad way to kill a few hours.

Final Grade = B-

#TBRChallenge 2024: The Perfect Bride

The Books: The Perfect Bride by Kerry Connor

The Particulars: Gothic romantic suspense, 2013, Harlequin Intrigue #1421, First book in duet, out of print, available in digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Seriously? Look at the cover. Also, I've read and liked books by Connor in the past.

The Review: There was a brief stretch of time when the Intrigue line would slip in the occasional Gothic or Gothic-adjacent story. There's definitely some Gothic vibes here, what with a dead bride and a mysterious old manor house, but this struck me more as Gothic homage. The Scooby Doo version of Gothic. Which hey, nothing wrong with that. Honestly this book was a lot of fun until the end when things kind of ran off the rails for me.

Jillian Jones is at Sutton Hall for two reasons: to solve her best friend's murder and guilt. Guilt because Courtney was the only "family" that Jillian had and Jillian made excuses to avoid making the trip to help plan Courtney's wedding at Sutton Hall because, ugh - she'd rather be boiled in oil than deal with planning a wedding. Now Courtney is dead. Having fallen off the balcony attached to her room. It was windy that night, dark, Courtney got too close to the ledge. At least that's what the official report says since the cops found no evidence to suggest it was anything other than a tragic accident. However, Jillian knows better. Courtney was deathly afraid of heights. No way in hell would she have opened the doors to that balcony let alone go outside on it! She has no choice in the matter. She's going to travel to Sutton Hall herself, pose as a prospective bride, and find out what happened to her friend.

Adam Sutton inherited the hall with his sister, Meredith, whose dream it was to start a wedding planning business and venue. Adam let his sister down before so he is determined to help her realize her dream. That said, he doesn't trust Jillian Jones as far as he could throw her. Their first bridal client died tragically on-site a month ago and suddenly here comes Jillian with no reservations about holding her wedding in a venue where another bride just died. She's also asking a lot of "innocent" and "I'm just curious" questions and oh look, there she is snooping around again. To aggravate him even further? He's attracted to her. Yes, even though he doesn't trust her and even though she's "engaged." 

The plot and suspense are confined to Sutton Hall and the cast of characters who work and live there. Adam, Meredith, a handyman, cook, housekeeper, gardener, and the gardener's 20-something son.  The author does a good job of casting suspicion on all of them, even though yes, this is a romance so of course Adam didn't do it.  Jillian is typical amateur sleuth, being sneaky, thinking on her feet when it comes to lying, and bungling a few things along the way. She reads very Every Woman and you can't help but admire her tenacity and determination with wanting to do right by her friend.

This is a romance though that doesn't stand up to too much scrutiny. The elephant in the room is that Jillian is supposedly engaged, everyone thinks she's engaged, and yet there's this chemistry pinging off of her and Adam.  However while there's some "standing too close" moments, they don't actually succumb to any of their mutual lust until after the truth comes out.  Which is one element that really works here - when it's time for Jillian to come clean, she comes clean. It makes sense within the framework of the story when that actually happens. Also, while I'm not entirely sure the sex scene fits in the narrative (I would have leaned more towards hot n' heavy just kisses here I think), the author doesn't try to do too much with the HEA. No snap marriage proposal, no sweeping declarations of true love. It leans more on the Let's See Where This Goes Happy For Now spectrum than full-blown Happy Ever After with Wedding Proposal and Heroine Pregnant with Triplets in the Epilogue (in fact, there is no epilogue....)

The Sutton Hall setting is great, I'm a sucker for the whole Gothic house vibe and this is a pretty fun and nostalgic ride until the ending when it all kind of falls apart. Of course our killer is unstable. Of course there's a history of mental illness.  And how our bad guy is dispatched? It's exciting, but if Adam and Meredith thought their business might not survive Dead Courtney, I'm not sure how they're going to spin things after the ending here.  Although obviously they figure it out because Meredith is the heroine of Book 2, although after reading that plot description it sounds like she's got bodies dropping left and right.  And before you ask, of course I'm curious enough to read it. Which as far as unearthing books from my TBR, I'm counting this one as a success.

Final Grade = C+