The Wedding People, by Alison Espach

After many failed rounds of IVF, a failed marriage and a dead cat, academic Phoebe has had enough of life and travels to a luxury hotel in Newport to end it on a high note. But Lila has booked out the entire hotel, apart from Phoebe’s room, for her six-day wedding extravaganza and she is not having a suicide wreck her big event. Against all odds the two women become friends, or at least trusted collaborators, both finding a new path that offers a hopeful future. Phoebe and Lila both take a similar journey of self-discovery, although with quite different outcomes. They get to know themselves and what they really want and how to go about getting it. It’s an interesting and often amusing examination of familial and friend relationships with a satisfying conclusion.