Always the Bridesmaid by Sarah Webb

From the Publisher

It's bad enough when your love life is going nowhere fast -- it's worse when everyone else's is soaring!

That's the personal tragedy that appears to have befallen Amy O'Sullivan, as she careens toward the "Big Three-O" with what she laughingly refers to as a "career" at a dead end. Amy's little sister has come home with her "Golden Delicious" Australian fiancé in tow. Amy's girlfriend Beth is also planning on tying the knot with her own Mr. Right in the near future. And another "friend" has just slept with the man Amy figured she herself might end up marrying! So what's a perennial bridesmaid to do . . . after she's spent more than enough time and energy lying in bed, wallowing in self-pity? Why, move on, of course! She's needed (sort of) at the bookstore where, as "Story Princess," she's expected to enliven young lives, even as her own sinks deeper in the mire.

Then again, perhaps there are actual Prince Charmings out there in the real world. And a pitiful princess never knows what -- or who -- is going to come walking in the door holding the hand of an eager little girl . . .

Kirkus Reviews

About to turn 30 and still single? Here are all your favorite chick-lit stereotypes once again, complete with heaps of exclamation points! Brace yourself for lots of trite dialogue and complaining about clothes! Laugh at standardized mishaps! The Dublin setting may be the only new wrinkle here, though this sanitized and prissy Ireland seems not even remotely real. Amy's well-groomed mum is a retired Aer Lingus hostess, and her dad runs an architectural salvage business. Naive but nice Amy works in a children's bookstore-Winnie the Pooh always makes her smile-and she often dons a pointed hat to read fairytales aloud to adorable little customers. Other than that, her life is ordinary, lacking only a Prince Charming. Hmm-any likely candidates? Amy wouldn't mind meeting Stevie J. It could happen. But maybe not. After all, he's "one of the most famous children's book personalities in the world. His books, based on the adventures of a young wizard called Henry, had sold in the millions and Spielberg was filming the first one." How amazing! He just popped in and he wants to talk to her! Stevie couldn't possibly be serious, of course. Besides, Amy is preoccupied with wedding plans for her baby sister Suzi and gorgeous, rugby-playing Matt, who's from Australia and is so, so tanned. Life just isn't fair. But brave Amy soldiers on through minor plot complications toward her very own, very special happy ending: she becomes the star of a children's TV show and gets engaged to-oops! That's a secret! Cloying tone, unoriginal story, published previously (2001) in England.

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Chapter One

The paranoia all started to kick in when my "baby" sister Suzi came home from Australia last December at the tender age of twenty-four, with the Golden Delicious rugby-playing Matt in tow. I thought things couldn't get any worse.

I was wrong.

"Suzi, have you told Mum and Dad?" I asked as we were loading my Golf with the bags in the airport car park. Matt had kindly offered to get rid of the baggage trolley.

"About what?" she asked quickly.

"About Matt," I replied. "Do they know he's come to live in Dublin?" She certainly hadn't told me and I'd got rather a shock when I'd seen the whole hunky six-foot-something of him coming through the arrivals gate with his arm draped over my sister's shoulders. Although I must admit that I'd thoroughly enjoyed the firm, muscular hug his brown arms had generously given me.

"Not exactly," she said nervously, "but they'll love him and there's loads of room in the house and ..."

"The house?" I interrupted, trying to keep my voice level. "You and Matt are planning to live at home?"

"Well, we want to save for a house and I'm sure Mum and Dad won't mind."

"Right," I muttered darkly. First me, now Suzi -- it wasn't as if we were Italian. Surely we were supposed to have our own homes at our age.

"Do you think it'll be a problem?" Suzi bit her lip.

"No," I lied. "They're so excited about having you home, I'm sure they won't mind."

Suzi nudged me. Matt was smiling at her across the car's roof.

"Let's go," Suzi said.

"You're very quiet," I said to Suzi who was sitting in the back with Matt as I drove down the motorway. Matt was looking anxiously out the back window at the driving rain and the dark gray sky. She leaned forward and popped her head through the space between the two front seats.

"I'm a bit worried about Mum and Dad. You're right. I should have told them. I just thought I'd surprise them, you know."

"I shouldn't have said anything," I said. I felt bad -- I should have kept my mouth firmly shut. I was always putting my Yeti-sized in it.

"Can we go for a drink before going home?" Suzi asked. She turned her head. "Matt, how are you feeling?"

"Fine," he stated. "Did you say drink?"

"Yes."

"Sounds cool."

"How about Johnnie Fox's?" I asked. "Show Matt a bit of real Ireland."

"Tourist Ireland, you mean," Suzi giggled. "Good idea."

As we drove up the steep, almost vertical, road toward the pub, I thought about the "lovebirds" and where they would sleep. Although neither of the parents are priests or vicars (unless they secretly belong to some strange sect who only practice early on Saturday and Sunday mornings when normal mortals, myself included, are dead to the world), we live beside the local church, which gives the term "what will the neighbors think?" new meaning. And directly opposite the house lives Father Lucas. So you can see why Suzi and Matt "living in sin" might not appeal to Mum and Dad.

When the church sold off some of its land and buildings to pay for a new roof, Dad and Mum bought a run-down, cut-stone Victorian house, originally the rectory. It was described as being "full of charm and old-world character." Bloody cold is what it really was. There was no central heating, no hot water as the immersion was on the blink, cold stone-tiled floors on the ground floor and bare pitch-black floorboards in the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs.

At the time we didn't give a monkey's about "the original Victorian iron fireplaces," or "the hand-glazed stained-glass window panels" or "the ancient white claw-footed bath with brass taps." We were freezing our tits off and destined to be woken every Sunday morning in the wee small hours (well, ten o'clock is very early if you've had one too many the night before) by the deafening clanging peal of the "original" Victorian church bells!

Mum and Dad had, to give them credit, turned the cold Psycho-house on the hill into -- as an estate agent would say -- "a delightful residence full of original character and untouched by the scourge of rabid modernization." But it had taken over twelve years and a lot of trips to house auctions, antique shops, not to mention rummages in skips and derelict houses. Dad always claimed they were completely derelict but we often wondered. Suzi and I had learned to spot old pine, original cast porcelain tiles, brass fenders and other weird and wonderful Victorian "housey bits" at a tender age.

Several years ago Dad opted for early retirement from his job as an architect with the Civil Service and set up The Architectural Salvage Company. A few weeks into the work and he was as happy as Larry and wondering why he hadn't packed in the office job years ago. He was dead right, if you ask me. Life's short and if you're going to spend years of your life working you may as well pick something you like. I should have taken my own advice ... Anyway, as I said, he loved the work and soon filled the garage and back garden with his "finds," much to Mum's disgust. Mum used to be an air hostess for Aer Lingus, and she's still always perfectly coiffured and immaculately dressed. She'd look glamorous in a polyester housecoat! I don't know what happened to the rest of the family. Neither does she for that matter.

Mum and Dad make an interesting couple, chalk and cheese really. Dad is never out of his jeans, which are usually covered in rust or mud or paint ...