#BookReview: Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Sutanto (Aunties #2)

Publisher: HQ (Harper Collins)
Publication Date: 29th March 2022

It’s supposed to be the perfect day…
After getting away with literal murder, Meddy can’t wait to settle down and marry the love of her life, Nathan. She’s found the dress, got the dream venue at Christ Church College, Oxford, plus having a destination wedding comes with the added bonus of not having to invite her very large extended family.

…But is it even a wedding if nobody gets killed?
Although when her meddling aunties get involved, Meddy knows her wedding is going to be anything but quiet. Even though there’s no dead body hidden in the freezer this time, for better or worse, it’s certainly going to be a day she’s never going to forget…

Four Aunties and a Wedding is the sequel to the 2021 novel, Dial A for Aunties (see my review here). Whilst it can be read as a standalone novel I would strongly recommend reading Dial A for Aunties first, in order to better understand both the background to the story and the dynamics of Meddy’s crazy family.

I was so excited to get my hands on an early review copy of Four Aunties and a Wedding, albeit slightly nervous in case it didn’t live up to expectations, given how much I loved Dial A for Aunties. However, I needn’t have worried because Sutanto has provided yet another laugh-out-loud hilarious story about Meddy Chan and her outrageously eccentric family.

After years of photographing weddings, it is Meddy’s turn to get married. She and her Chinese/Indonesian family are travelling to Oxford, England, the home of the groom’s very proper English family, where Nathan and Meddy are due to be married in a traditional ceremony at Oxford Christ Church. Meddy knows how stressful wedding arrangements can be, so she hires the Tanuwijayas, a family of wedding vendors who have the skills to organise everything that Meddy and Nathan will need to make their day super special. After years of dealing with her own crazy family, Meddy is relieved to find a kindred spirit in Staphanie, the Tanuwijayas’ photographer. However, on overhearing a telephone call which indicates that the Tanuwijayas may not be quite what everyone believes. They may be excellent wedding vendors, but they also appear to be deep into shady business with plans to “take someone out” at Meddy’s wedding. It seems like Meddy and her aunties have unwittingly got themselves involved with an organised crime syndicate! Can Meddy and her aunts foil the mafia’s plans, save the target and get Meddy to the church on time?!

Meddy may be the heroine of the story, but it is her mother and aunties who steal the show with their mis-use of British slang and their startling wedding outfits – the ladies really are absolutely bonkers, but I can’t deny that they certainly know how to put a pair of tights (aka pantyhose for you US readers) to good use!

Four Aunties and a Wedding had me laughing out loud. It’s weird, wacky, totally absurd, wonderfully ridiculous, unique and strangely heart-warming. Plus, it’s kind of a mystery/crime story, so there’s a little bit of intrigue thrown in to keep the reader hooked. I really did have so much fun reading this book.

Huge thanks to HQ and to Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of this brilliant book.

Jesse Q Sutanto is the author of Dial A for Aunties, The Obsession, and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. The film rights to her women’s fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war. Jesse lives in Indonesia with her husband, her two daughters, and her ridiculously large extended family.