Bad Luck Bridesmaid

by Alison Rose Greenberg

Genres: Romantic Comedy; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Whip-smart, heartfelt and joyful, Alison Rose Greenberg's Bad Luck Bridesmaid is a celebration of complicated women and a power-anthem to live your truth.

This is not a rom com. You’ve been warned.

It’s official: Zoey Marks is the cursed bridesmaid that no engagement can survive. Ten years, three empire waist dresses, and ZERO brides have walked down the aisle.

After strike three, Zoey is left wondering if her own ambivalence towards marriage has rubbed off on those she loves. And when her building distrust of matrimony culminates in turning down a proposal from her perfect All-American boyfriend, Rylan Harper III, she and Rylan are both left heartbroken, leaving Zoey to wonder: what is it exactly about tying the knot that makes her want to run in the opposite direction?

Enter Hannah Green: Zoey’s best friend, who announces that she’s marrying a guy she just met (cue eye roll). At a castle. In gorgeous, romantic Ireland, where Rylan will be in attendance, and Zoey will be a bridesmaid. It’ll be fine.

Okay, the woman definition of fine (NOT FINE).

Determined to turn her luck around, Zoey accepts her role and vows to get Hannah down the aisle—all the while praying her best friend’s wedded bliss will allow her to embrace marriage and get Rylan back.

But as the weekend goes on, Zoey is plagued with more questions than answers. Can you be a free spirit, yet still want a certain future? Can you have love and be loved on your terms? And how DO you wrangle a bossy falcon into doing your bidding?

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Griffin

Release date: January 11, 2022

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

One

I knew right before the violinist’s fifth loop of Ben Folds’s “The Luckiest” that I was, in fact, the opposite. I was zero for three. I did nothing to disguise my resting this-is-awkward face, helplessly peering down at a crowd of two hundred impatient strangers stuffed into the small, ancient church. I felt the heavily contoured “honey, now you have a jawline” foundation melt down my cheeks. The church’s two ceiling fans were no match for Georgia’s August humidity, and while the makeup artist had promised I would emerge looking like a “dewy Instagram filter,” my face resembled something closer to a sad clown’s. Not helping was the ambitious flower crown digging into my skull. Was I not a bridesmaid after all, but actually a thirty-one-year-old boho flower girl?

I adjusted the folk horror film dangling over my eyes and took in the Gothic sanctuary. Light cascaded into the room through stained-glass windows, which depicted scenes from the Bible—or possibly a toga party gone wrong. The bride, Rebecca, had clocked a disconcerting number of hours on Pinterest, and it showed. Rustic Chic Jesus was thriving. Vines of eucalyptus lined the aisle, with white orchids and light pink peonies dancing on the twigs. Cascading towers of white candles set in mason jars lit a pathway to the altar, arched in a display of orchids. It was all so beautiful. It was all so unnecessary.

Our bride was Gone Girl.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.

This was an admittedly odd time for a James Bond reference to resurface in my brain, but my mind had no boundaries.

Over the past decade, I had purchased three bridesmaid dresses for three separate weddings. While all three empire waist gowns participated in making me look like I was entering my last trimester, exactly zero of them participated in a recessional. I was three times a bridesmaid, yet there was never a bride.

Zero for three.

I was the enemy of love.

I was Bad Luck Bridesmaid.

I did not come to this conclusion alone.


BAD LUCK BRIDESMAID. Copyright © 2021 by Alison Rose Greenberg.