Review of Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts

Happy Ever After

Nora Roberts

Berkley

355 pages

Happy Ever After is the fourth and final novel in Ms. Roberts Bride Quartet

Parker Brown experienced what no child ever wants to go through in the tragic death of her parents, in the after math of that tragedy however Parker was able to turn her childhood dream into a reality, the reality of Vows. Vows runs like a well oiled machine and with the expertise of her three closest friends has become the premier event planning company in Connecticut. Now that those three friends are all well and truly in love with their other halves and engaged, Parker is up to her eyebrows in weddings to plan, the thing she does not need is a certain motorcycle riding, leather wearing, irreverent bad boy mechanic to stir her blood, but none-the less her blood stirs whenever he’s around. Malcolm Kavanaugh is a true go to fix it guy, if it’s got parts he can take it apart and put it back together purring, the other thing he’s a great admirer of a great set of legs and that’s the first thing he’s noted about Parker, but knowing how things work doesn’t necessary mean he knows what’s in his heart or even how to express himself and when these two unlikely pair up not only are there fireworks but it might just be love.

It’s mind boggling how Ms. Roberts keeps her novels fresh especially when you realize just how many a year she turns out, but fresh is one thing that stood out with this entire mini-series and in my humble opinion this novel Happy Ever After is the best of the four. The storyline is amusing, thoughtful and sometimes heart wrenching but it’s everything you’d expect in the planning of the most important day of your life especially when some of the brides to be might just have been hatched by the devil. If you’re a Nora Roberts fan you will recognize the dialogue as she loves certain phrases and lines of speech, but that’s not a bad thing at all. The one thing that she has down to a science in this series is the interactions of the friends. There have been times during this novel when the 4 women alone or with their significant others were together that the conversation was so articulate and real that I could actually visualize the gathering and the exchanges in my head. Her characters are all over the spectrum from over the top wealthy to ordinary John and Jane Does, the main protagonists in this installment of the Bride Quartet were the most unlikely to pair up together, the most likely to not make it to the Happy Ever After and probably the most deserving of it, and we her audience will be following the progress and laughing one minute and wiping tears the next as well follow the couple through their romance which is funny and sad at the same time, to the love scenes that would scorch the staunchest readers and leave them smoking in their seats.

My suggestion would be to all those bride to bees out there, to all the MOH’s, the MOG’s, the MOB’s to the GMOB to the SOB’s and if you’re having trouble deciphering these terms well my suggestion would be to get Happy Ever After and find out what it’s all about. I think of all of the novels in the series this one stands best alone but why risk missing some minute detail that you can only find in Vision in White which is the first novel or maybe you’ll miss some important biographical fact from Bed of Roses, the second in the series or maybe just maybe you’ll miss some important detrimental element from one of the groups relatives we meet in Savor The Moment the third in the series. The solution, get all four in the bride quartet series, you will not be sorry you did.