Series: #1
Publication Date: 09th May 2025
Genre: Contemporary Romance
3.5 Stars
One Liner: It was nice, but dragged a little
Eight years ago, on the leap day (29th Feb), wedding planner Sophie-Leigh Kirke proposed to her then-boyfriend, who broke her heart. She cut contact with him and moved on with her life.
Mountaineer Andreas is now back in her life, working for an adventure travel company; the same one with which her destination wedding company has been merged. With Andreas assigned as her guide, Sophie has to search for the perfect local for a destination wedding for the client.
Thrown together by circumstances, can the two sort out their past and decide their future? Will it be together or apart from one another?
The story comes in the third-person POVs of Sophie and Andreas.
My Thoughts:
Well, I liked the premise of a second chance romance with a virtual tour of the Italian hills, never mind that I’m not into mountaineering. Imagine wanting to climb a mountain as part of your wedding. Shudder! Good if you like it. Not for me!
This is quite an angsty book where the tension between the lead couple starts almost at the beginning. Some of it was well done, especially Sophie’s arc.
We also get a lot of descriptions of the places they hike and explore to finalize the venue for the destination wedding. I did enjoy most of it. Who doesn’t like a virtual tour of a new place?
There are a few side characters we meet at the beginning, but they don’t have much role to play until the end (not even then, TBH). However, the reason for their presence is hinted at in the epilogue and the acknowledgments. This is apparently the first book in the series. There will be more with the same team, but different couples.
However, the storyline seems to drag on for a while. The book feels longer than it should have been. There’s also a lot of repetition about the MMC’s opinion about marriage and weddings.
What made this a 3-star instead of a 4-star was the MMC. Even after reading the book, I couldn’t actually see the reason for his actions (except that he acted like a man-child afraid of emotions and commitment). Maybe his inability to express his feelings is realistic, but he annoyed me quite a lot for the majority of the book. He did manage to pull himself together, though.
They also go around in circles a lot. Cutting down some of this (and making the book shorter) would have helped a lot and also shown the MMC in a better light.
The epilogue has nothing to do with this story, so it is more of a teaser for the next one.
To summarize, An Italian Wedding Adventure is a decent romance with travel, adventure, and some drama. It could have been better, but it does have its moments.
Thank you, NetGalley and Boldwood Books, for eARC.
#NetGalley #AnItalianWeddingAdventure
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