Vision in White by Nora Roberts

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date: April 2009
ISBN-13: 9780425227510
Sales Rank: 50
352pp
Series: Wedding Quartet Series, #1









Book Synopsis

#1 New York Times bestseller author Nora Roberts cordially invites you to meet childhood friends Parker, Emma, Laurel and Mac - the founders of Vows, one of Connecticut's premier wedding planning companies.

After years of throwing make-believe weddings in the backyard, flowers, photography, desserts and details are what these women do best: a guaranteed perfect, beautiful day full of memories to last the rest of your life.

With bridal magazine covers to her credit, Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most at home behind the camera---ready to capture the happy moments she never experienced while growing up. Her father replaced his first family with a second, and now her mother, moving on to yet another man, begs Mac for attention and money. Mac's foundation is jostled again moments before an important wedding planning meeting when she bumps into the bride-to-be's brother....an encounter that has them both seeing stars.

Carter Maguire is definitely not her type. He's stable and he's safe. He's even an English teacher at their high school alma mater. There's something about him that make Mac think a casual fling is just what she needs to take her mind off dealing with bride-zillas and screening her mother's phone calls. But a casual fling can turn into something more when you least expect it. And with the help of her three best friends --- and business partners --- Mac must learn how to make her own happy memories.....

End Book Synopsis

First, I want to thanks Alice for joint-reading Vision in White with me (click her name, to read her review). It has been fun and I always enjoy it. I'm looking forward to do more joint-reading with you in the future :) Hopefully sooner! And maybe we will do the reviews differently this time *grin*

I'm not sure how much of spoilers this will be, so read below at your own risk! :)

My thoughts: This is first book to Wedding Quartet Series. I love the cover art for this book and thought it fit well with the story. Very elegant and formal like. The front and back cover flap are fold in (the flap where you usually read the Synopsis from or sometime has "about authors" inside it). It perfect and match the story inside.

Let me start by saying that I'm so glad that this book does not have any paranormal elements in it. And I was also happy that Nora returning to her straight romance writing again. I've missed those stories, like the one she have written in the past. This doesn't mean I don't like her romance suspense. I still do. In fact, I love them. But every once in while, I would love to read Nora's straight romance too. It just something about the way she wrote romance, characters, family and dialogues that stick to me the most.

While reading this book, I was taking back to Nora's earlier romance trilogies, like The Dream Trilogy for example. Both show a very tight knit friends who support each other like family and are loyalty to one another. All characters has their ambition, dream and career. I love The Dream Trilogy, however Vision in White didn't quite hold very close to be favorite. While I did enjoy the book, it almost lacked something. Maybe the book need more interaction between the four bestfriends. Or maybe more dialogues. I don't know. But for the most of it, I did enjoy the book. I love that the book revolved around a wedding planner. It was interesting to see the business life of wedding planner and how they work. It was also interesting to take a look at each women doing their job and what it take to make a perfect wedding for their clients. And you can easily see how well they work together. They were a team, a business partner. It was also interesting to see how they separate their work from their personal life as well.

I remember wanting to be one when I was younger and tearing out pictures, words, poems, segment all of these things from a magazine or kept some document papers into binder folders. It was fun than, but I wonder whatever happen to those bind folders *grin*. But I love wedding! You can see how excited I was when I learn that Nora writing Quartet Series about wedding planner. It made me want to be in their team. I can actually picture the secret insider of their work. It might have seem like thatVision in White was written to give us a set back look into the world of wedding planner and give us who the "player" (characters) are before given us more depth in the romance for each characters, IMO. She usually write the friendship between the women so well, that I feel I know them my whole life.

While the romance between Mac and Carter were there, it was still lacking something. Maybe it was the chemistry, maybe the spark, the firework. Maybe I don't see enough interaction between them. The first time they encounter each other, made me chuckle. I smiled. Carter was a very sweet and caring guy. He is the kind of guy you want to bring home to met your family. Or sit down, relax and eat pizza with. There were couple of scenes where I smile when he was trying to set a plan date with Mac. You can tell he was nervous. Mac seem to be the one who needed self help. With her background history, her parents divorced and remarrying, she just never understood what real love is. Not until she met her three close friends (and business partner) and fell in love with Carter. Her mother is the kind of a person who you want to hate and avoid. It just seem like we know more of Mac history and her mother than anything else. And I root for her when she finally "let her mom have it". I love seeing Mac in her camera mode, when she focus on taking pictures of something she knew would be a "picture moments". She capture those happy moments so well, that you can really tell she want to live in those moments. The kind of moments that she never have, while growing up. It was a great experience for her. I for one, love to take pictures and scrapbooks too. So I do get really involved when there are scenes of Mac in her moments, as she taking pictures.

We got peek of Carter's family and Mac's guys-friend. There wasn't enough of them, but I want to know more and hope we see them in the next installment books. I also want to see more interaction between the women's friendship. I'm interested to know who Emma, Laurel and Parker will end up with. Hopefully an alpha man this time. I am all for the alpha men *grin* I'm glad though that we do not get to see who each person will be with or end up with in the first book, as it had been done in few previous books. I like to "meet" the characters from their own book.

Vision in White was a sweet story about the friendship and love. It was a fast pace and very easily read. Very engaging and fun. It was like a formula developed of characters too. And feeling their emotions and despair. Not a lot of conflict or plot but the book was enjoyable and entertaining. I'm interested to read the next installment. And I hope you will too :)

Grade: 4 stars

Bed of Roses will be the next book, releasing in November 24, 2009. If you click on the titles, you may see the book cover of it. It is ready pre-order now. I can't wait to get it!