Saturday 17 March 2007

The Trouble with Weddings by Sharon Owens

The Trouble with Weddings
Sharon Owens
Poolbeg €15.99
Lucille Redmond

WEDDING planner Mags – a Belfast housewife with just a tinge of the Hyacinth Bucket about her, who speaks in the kind of Nordie Mockney that’s so reminiscent of transvestites in cosy cardies – has a problem.

Her boss, wedding planner supreme Julie, has chickened out. Julie loves other people’s weddings – she just doesn’t want to get married herself, and wealthy, sexy boyfriend Gary has popped the question.

Julie leaves capable Mags to steer the lighthouse through perilous waters while she goes off to Galway and has a mad passionate affair with a gorgeous young barman who looks just like Sean Bean.

On top of it all, Mags’s son and his anorexic daughter are in mid-emergency, and a teenshy rock star in platforms wants her to arrange a Gothic wedding for him and his supermodel girlfriend.

Sharon Owens, great-niece of Benedict Kiely and a writer whose gift with comic timing will leave readers gasping with laughter, has triumphed with this romantic farce.

Owens fans will love the morass of confusion, nonsense and sheer fun she conjures from the magic of a dream wedding or two.

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