I am so pleased to be part of the BLOG TOUR for DIAL A FOR AUNTIES this week, described by the publisher as:
What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!
[I received a free electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Berkley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Meddelin has been roped into the family business – weddings – thanks to the family curse. The men always leave. Her father, all of her uncles – even her male cousins all went to colleges on the East Coast to get away. But Meddy was the good daughter who went to UCLA, and came back home to live with her mother after she graduated. And because she is the dutiful daughter, she agrees to be the photographer for the wedding business.
Working with her mom and aunts isn’t all bad, but Meddy longs to be independent and pursue her own passions. But for now, she’s focused on the next big event – a wedding joining two spectacularly wealthy families which is taking place at a new island resort.
To complicate her life even more, Meddy’s mother has set her up on a blind date with the owner of the hotel where the wedding will be. Well, it’s a blind date to Meddy. Jake thinks they’ve been chatting and texting for weeks. Her mother posed as her on the dating site. But when Jake thinks those chats entitle him to more than Meddy is willing to give, she tases him.
And he dies.
Meddy’s mom and aunts come to her rescue, but they have a huge wedding to work that weekend. They just need to stash the body until after the wedding. But then it accidentally gets transported to the island with their wedding supplies.
Review
What. A. Hoot! This is a crazy comedy of errors twisting around unrequited love and secrets and lies. To me it felt like Finlay Donovan Is Killing It meets Weekend at Bernie’s. I kept telling my husband each subsequent crazy thing because the chaos – and humor – begs to be shared.
I enjoyed the characters here, especially the strong family ties for Meddy. The pros and cons of that closeness added a nice layer to the chaos caused by the dead body. But it never crossed the line into annoying or boundry-less interactions that I steer clear of in books. This was just the right amount of intrusion to make for a funny and interesting story.
The author makes good use of a few flashback chapters to round out part of the story. And some of the developments in the book were laugh-out-loud hilarious. Some of the moments were farcically over the top, but at the same time, I was completely committed to seeing Meddy through this with fingers crossed that it would all work out in the end.
This is unusual and funny and engaging – a not-to-be-missed story! (Language, LGBTQ+, alcohol/drug use, TW: attempted assault)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥*
*♥♥♥♥ = Great! Might re-read.