A Wedding In Cornwall by Laura Briggs

3.5 Stars

The first thing that strikes you about the book is that the author has probably never set foot on British soil, let alone visited the places she is writing about.  There is much that is American about the book and very little that is British, from the language to the locales none of it ever really feels centred in the locale that it purports so proudly to be set in.  Strangely this was not an insurmountable problem for me as the writing is breezy and moves the plot along at a generous pace which stops you getting bogged down in the minutiae of both the plot and the writing; neither of which would really stand up to close scrutiny.

The one thing that did irritate was the nicknaming of Matthew to Ross - I really find it very hard to believe that native Cornish people would go down the Poldark route (as good as it may have been for Tourism).  Not helped by me doing a reverse turn on the American writing about a location she has never visited by automatically seeing Ross as the esteemed Mr Geller from Friends rather than Poldark.

The characterisations are painted rather broadly but somehow still seem to have a depth and realism that did manage to surprise me.  Julianne in particular is a good human mix of emotions and behaviours and prone to being a bit of a cow on occassion - makes a nice change from the overly lovely people we often meet in books.

I did enjoy this book as a light, frivolous read that would have been ideal for the commute (if I had one) as it was easy to dip in and out of.