On the Way to the Wedding
Title: On the Way to the Wedding
Author: Julia Quinn
Published: 27th June 2006
Genre: Romance, Historical, Fiction, Regency
Number of Pages: 371
Start Date: 7th April 2023
Finish Date: 8th April 2022
Summary
A funny thing happened. Unlike most men of his acquaintance, Gregory Bridgerton believes in true love. And he is convinced that when he finds the woman of his dreams, he will know in an instant that she is the one. And that is exactly what happened.
Except she wasn’t the one. In fact, the ravishing Miss Hermione Watson is in love with another. But her best friend, the ever-practical Lady Lucinda Abernathy, wants to save Hermione from a disastrous alliance, so she offers to help Gregory win her over.
But in the process, Lucy falls in love. With Gregory! Except Lucy is engaged. And her uncle is not inclined to let her back out of the betrothal, even once Gregory comes to his senses and realizes that it is Lucy, with her sharp wit and sunny smile, who makes his heart sing.
And now, on the way to the wedding, Gregory must risk everything to ensure that when it comes time to kiss the bride, he is the only man standing at the altar.
Review
Gregory is truly romantic which is so different from his brothers. He wants to fall in love and wants to make grand gestures! He isn’t like Anthony, Benedict, or Colin who want to avoid marriage like the plague, Gregory wants to get married and fall in love.
In fact he can hardly wait! I thought that was a fun approach because all the other Bridgerton brothers took so much convincing to accept the fact that they are in love whereas Gregory did not and I thought that left room for more action and intrigue.
Most of the other books (including the sisters) didn’t really have much in the way of separate plots. The plots were mostly meeting, falling in love, getting past issues, HEA. This book replaced ‘get past issues’ with ‘solve mystery’. Not like murder mystery but suss out family secrets. The plot is still very much a romance, but it had this fun little separate component that made it a little different from the other books.
I could personally have done without the Hermione storyline early on in the book but it was also the catalyst to future events and showed how much Gregory wanted to fall in love, but for me it didn’t add as much as I think it was trying to; if that makes sense.
In the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a huge deal or distraction from the plot though. Gregory and Lucy had a lot of chemistry together too. Lucy was almost a younger version of Kate in the earlier books, but was still her own person. I thought that once they recognized their attraction for one another it was charming, sweet, and perhaps not as hot as some of the other romances, but satisfying all the same.
This book was less steamy than some of the other books in my opinion, which was fine but surprising in some ways. I liked the troupe (woman engaged to another man who she doesn’t love) and I thought that Julia Quinn could have really dove right in and made Gregory’s story a lot more steamy, but in the end I liked that she pivoted to a more tender romance with a little heat thrown in.
Over all it was a beautiful romance and a lovely story with great chemistry. Finding out about Lucy and her family’s past was interesting and a new twist in the overall plot. As much as I loved reading this book, it was definitely not in the top three. But I did love seeing Gregory’s story play out.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️