The Stranger at the Wedding
A Novel
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Before love at first sight, there were things no one saw.
Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. After crossing paths on morning commutes, they connect at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. Each recognizes something in the other, though both hide their own troubled pasts.
It’s a whirlwind romance that propels Annie through their courtship, all the way to her wedding day—a day she couldn’t have predicted for herself once upon a time yet now feels surer about than anything in her life.
But as Annie stands at the altar, casting her eyes over the rows of well-wishers, she spots a stranger in the crowd, and she soon learns that her new life isn’t going to be the happily ever after that she had planned. Who is the stranger at the wedding? What really happened to Mark’s first wife? And was Annie and Mark’s meeting as random as it first appeared, or is something more sinister at work?
A sizzling thriller, A. E. Gauntlett's The Stranger at the Wedding will make you think twice before saying “I do.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Literary agent Gauntlett debuts with an un-put-downable thriller about a couple whose relationship unravels on their wedding night. University professor Annie Clark has put an uncommon amount of care into her wedding to surgeon Mark Lane, which goes off without a hitch until she spots an uninvited guest. From there, flashbacks reveal how Mark's marriage to his first wife, Hope, fractured amid his drinking and their fertility issues, and how Hope disappeared without a trace after befriending a mysterious woman named Charlotte. Devastated, Mark joined a support group for trauma survivors, and met Annie outside the venue one evening. Meanwhile, the uninvited wedding guest turns out to be a PI hired by Mark's father to investigate Hope's disappearance, and his presence causes Mark to spiral. Soon, he's casting suspicion on Annie, wondering whether their meeting was truly by chance and becoming increasingly curious about the deaths of her father and sister. Gauntlett moves fluidly between past and present, gradually revealing the secrets behind Hope's disappearance without once allowing the pace to flag. By the time the explosive finale arrives, readers may find they've been up all night.