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The Beach Wedding
£1.90
Will your past always catch up with you?
Tessa Dannall is excited and happy when her daughter, Nia, arrives at their family’s tropical beach resort to get married.
Tessa is also trying to forget the last time she went to a wedding on this beach and how that day changed her life for ever.
But as the big day draws near, Tessa realises she must face the deadly ghosts from her past – or they may ruin her daughter’s future…
Praise for Dorothy Koomson:
‘Terrifically addictive’ Good Housekeeping
‘Beautifully written’ Closer
‘Koomson just gets better and better’ Woman and Home
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | Arrow (1 Feb. 2018) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 112 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1784756385 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1784756383 |
| Dimensions | 12.9 x 0.7 x 19.8 cm |
by Janine Sheppard
Quick read for a holiday and easy to travel with
by Pamela Scott
Well written.
by KL.Caley
I really like these Quick Read books, a little something to read when I’ve finished a book late at night, still want to read but it’s too late to start anything chunky. An easy 100(ish) pages to lose yourself in.
I’ve said it before, but will say it again for the people in the back, I love Dorothy Koomson. (Side note: auto-correct keeps changing her name to Dorothy Looks Ok, and I’m sure she does!)
This well-written short story packs quite a lot in to its pages; intrigue, characters with depth, and a colourful setting. All which give a good glimpse in to the author’s writing style. I loved the dual narrative, with one timeline catching up to the present day.
I thought the characters, particularly Tessa and Jake, were well fleshed out with background and their thoughts and behaviours were believable and realistic.
This is an absorbing and satisfying short story which I enjoyed.
by Lullabel
I love anything Dorothy Koomson, so was excited to give her short story a go. I was not disappointed and found this story full of detail and twists and turns. However, Koomson’s longer novels certainly pack more shocking twists and turns than this, so be sure to have a read of her other work too!
by KL.Caley
Tessa Dannall is excited when her daughter arrives at their family beach resort. Her daughter has planned a joyful wedding on the beach at the family holiday resort but the plans bring back painful memories for Tessa who suffered a tragedy at her own beach wedding many years before. When the in-laws arrive tensions are heightened when Tessa realises they are connected with her past.
This is another novel from the “quick reads” collection which I have begun looking through lately. The idea of this collection is exactly as it says on the tin (or should that be cover), a shorter than normal book by world leading authors. One of the things I quite like about these books is that they force the authors to cut out a lot of the waffle that sometimes goes on in books. This keeps the stories quite fast paced with a lot happening in less time. I’m proud of authors who take on the challenge of writing these books so that they can be enjoyed by all even those who aren’t keen reader. I love to read these books after I finish a long novel or quite a serious non-fiction book, I find it refreshes my reading cycle a little.
I often think it’s useful to see an extract of a book to get an idea of the writing style. Here is a brief extract so that you can see a sample of the writing yourself:
Eventually, Jake moved away from me and sat back to pull and do up his trousers. I straightened myself out as Jake climbed off the sofa and returned to sitting on the floor beside me, staring at the television. Nothing was said for long minutes and I wondered if we’d ever speak of this. Or if we would pretend it hadn’t happened.
‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ Jake finally said.
‘You still miss Drew so much. I still miss him so much. He was my brother, you know? We grew up together. Double trouble, everyone called us. We looked alike, we were alike. My mum was always saying it was like she’d had twins, because she spent as much time telling him off as she did me. His mum said the same about me before she died. It makes sense we both wanted the same woman.’
This story is told by Tessa although it switches from the present day timeline and the flashbacks to the time of her own wedding. The author does a really good job of slowly revealing bit by bit Tessa’s past which is really the more intriguing part of this storyline in my opinion.
This book primarily has a lovely beach setting which does give it a lovely holiday read type feel to it.
Any Negatives: I think parts of the story could move a bit quicker at times and as other reviewers have stated it is a bit predictable in places but I enjoyed it.
Overall View: I found this review quite difficult to write without giving too much away but hopefully I managed to share enough to give you the gist of the storyline. It was an enjoyable read, it very much felt like a holiday read (in fact you’d easily finish it on a short flight, not that there is too much flying going on these days). It’s not high drama, more of bubble-gum soap opera type book but light reading with a bit of escapism isn’t a bad thing every now and then. You get a great chunk of story in less than 100 pages, what more could you ask for.
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by Claire
I love the time of year when Quick Reads release their titles for the year. These are perfect for people on the go, who have a little time but really want to feel like they have read and achieved something.
Koomson is a popular women’s fiction writer and has written some very popular books. This is less than 100 pages but didn’t feel rushed and had many twists and turns in it.
Nia and Marvin are due to be getting married at Nia’s family home in Ghana, this was the same place that her mother was meant to marry her father, but something happened on that faithful day that she doesn’t like to speak about. Nia’s mother is not so sure it is a good idea that her daughter is to marry in the same place, surely it is bad luck? Things look like they are going ahead anyway and when Marvin’s parents turn up a few days early, everything changes.
This was a short story that I devoured in a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, I would recommend this to anyone who wants a small escapism but can’t commit to a full length novel.
by Amazon Customer
Dorothy Koomson is my idol. I have adored every single page from every single book she has written. Thank you for being my escape.
by mrsb2011
Koomson is one of my favourite writers. So I had high expectations for this short novella. I really enjoyed The Beach Wedding. It’s not quite what I was expecting when I started to read it. I thought this would be a love story but it turned out to be much darker than I was expecting. Tessa is a great character. I felt for her, wanting her daughter’s wedding to be perfect but struggling with the painful memories of the love she lost more than twenty years before. The Beach Wedding is well written and compelling. The book loses one star because some events were a bit too far-fetched for my liking.