This was a short and sweet story. A few harrowing moments prior to the double wedding of Ashley and Jon and Melanie and Cam (who knew how useful a hatpin could be?) In the end the wedding and reception went well. The best moment was Spunky the cat strolling down the aisle.
I love this series, so very cozy, and I love North Carolina! I really did not expect much from this particular book in the Magnolia Mysteries series. It was slated as part of my annual holiday reading list. Christmas-themed mysteries are almost always very light on mystery and more focused on Christmas or the winter festivities. This book had really 2 themes: Christmas and a wedding. Therefore, the mystery was practically non-existent, comprising only a scant 2 or 3 chapters of the entire book. That in itself did not seem to bother me nor should it be a deterrent for anyone who is planning to read this particular book in the series or the series at all.
What I do have issue with is the lack of editing. There were quite a few typos in the book. In one excerpt with a horse-drawn carriage, someone had grabbed the horse by its bridle. In the book it was spelled "bridal". When reading the passage it didn't make sense to me since it is a wedding-themed book, until I realized it was a bad misspelling of a homonym. Using the skills of a good copy editor or even a second pair of eyes would have caught this mistake, other typos and grammatical errors.
Overall, I still enjoy this series. Having read half of the books, I do plan to continue with the remainder. I gave this book a 3.75 star rating, rounded up to 4 stars.
There was no mystery or murder in this one. Just a novella to show the main couple's wedding preparations and day. Loved hearing about wedding details, but it didn't make much of a plot. Thought the bit about Scarlett was really interesting and exciting, wish they made a whole story-line out of that.
I do indeed enjoy the characters in Hunter's novels and I love reading about the Wilmington, NC area. However this book lacked the intrigue of the preceding mysteries. I was disappointed.