The Wedding Tree
Hope Stevens is 31 and struggling to recover from a disastrous marriage when she is called home to Wedding Tree, Louisiana. Her grandmother, Adelaide, is in the hospital after falling and can no longer live alone. Hope volunteers to stay with Gran until she is able to relocate to her son’s San Francisco home, and to help Adelaide sort through a lifetime’s worth of belongings. It won’t go quickly, for each old dress and photograph carries memories. Before long, Hope realizes that unhappy relationships are as old as humanity, and that Adelaide’s closets hide her own skeletons amid the vintage clothing.
Thus begins The Wedding Tree, by Robin Wells. Ms. Wells slips deftly between Adelaide’s WWII romance with an airman who is lost and presumed dead, her marriage of convenience to a wounded veteran she pities but does not love, Hope’s recovery from her own heartbreak, and the growing attraction between Hope and Adelaide’s widowed neighbor, Matt Lyons.
The Wedding Tree is a fast, enjoyable read, with believable, complex characters that pull you into their world and make you care about their entwined fates. And what of the mysterious burial in Adelaide’s backyard? Read The Wedding Tree to find out.
