The Sixth Wedding is by Elin Hilderbrand. It is book two is a series about five close friends on Nantucket Island.
Cooper Blessing, fifty-six years old and married and divorced five times, knelt on the sidewalk and proposed to Stacey Patterson. Instead of answering, she took his hand and led him to their car. They had met and dated for three years in college and then broke up. Ten years later, they had gotten back together for a short time before breaking up again. She married and had two children but had divorced this past Christmas. Meanwhile, he had married and divorced five times. Instead of accepting his proposal, she turned him down. She wasn’t going to be divorcee number six. His therapist told him he was sabotaging himself. He decided it all started on Labor Day weekend, 1993.
His sister, Mallory, had inherited their grandparents’ cottage on Nantucket. When he asked, she graciously agreed to host his bachelor weekend down there. He was coming with his best friends, Fray and Jake. She belatedly remembered she had invited her best friend Leland down. However, Leland, Fray, Mallory, and Cooper had known each other since they were children so it should be fine. Cooper’s fiancé refused to come. The first day, after a wild night, Cooper was called back to town by his fiancé, Fray and Leland hooked up then Leland left with some people from New York, Fray got blitzed and was picked up by the police, and then went home. Jake decided to stay the rest of the weekend with Mallory’s permission. That started their “same time, next year” romance that lasted 28 years. She had gotten cancer and died, leaving her son, Link with Cooper and his father, Fray. Now, Cooper was all alone and got the original gang back together and met again to try to make things right on Labor Day weekend, 2023.
Elin tells what happened to each of the members of the group as well as Jake’s daughter Bess and Mallory’s son Link. No one understood fully what Jake and Mallory had done. How could they be happy with only one weekend a year. They kept it a secret even during the Presidential campaign when Jake’s wife ran for President. How was it possible? Link wants to know more. Cooper wants to forgive himself for not taking better care of his sister.
I can tell you that I didn’t like the ending at all. I couldn’t decide whether to be happy or sad or mad at the ending. Now I have to wait until the next book to find out how I should feel. I definitely wasn’t expecting this to happen.
J0125
Marion Marchetto, author