At The Whispering Dress, brides can find the perfect vintage dress for their big day. The owner, Fran Delaney, has a knack for giving new life to these old dresses and believes that each dress can give its past energy to its current wearer. Fran scours old estate sales to find her dresses and it is at one of these that she finds a beautiful couture gown, as well as the original owner’s son, Rafael. In her quest to find out more about the couture gown, Fran becomes involved with Rafael, who wants nothing to do with the dress or its history.
I really liked the premise of this book – a vintage wedding dress shop where the owner finds special dresses for each bride. But I disliked the two main characters so much.
I just didn’t get Fran. It felt like the author didn’t know what she wanted to do with her. Fran believes that the dresses whisper to her about their past and she gets visions about the dresses. I couldn’t tell if Fran was supposed to be psychic or was she just eccentric? Was this supposed to be a nod to magical realism?
Rafael was a snob. There’s no other way to put it. It was clear he looked down on Fran for her “silly” wedding dress fascination. Even after they got together he still kind of belittled her occupation. I was not a fan of that and could not understand why Fran would want to date him. Honestly, the only good qualities I thought he had was that he was nice to his sister and he ran his family’s charitable foundation.
I had trouble seeing any chemistry between Fran and Rafael. It seemed like they disliked each other so much that I couldn’t believe their relationship. And when issues came up, they could have solved most of their problems with some communication.
I wish we saw more scenes of Fran in her dress shop finding dresses for brides. This is also a situation where I wish we had some pictures to look at so we could see all these wedding dresses. I had trouble trying to picture a red chiffon dress with a marabou stole as a wedding dress Additionally, just a little quibble, but I didn’t understand how Fran’s shop could stay open considering that she sold maybe 1 dress per week?
This book wasn’t bad, but I didn’t think it was great. Also, I am super confused about why the title of the book is The Second Chance Boutique but the name of the shop is The Whispering Dress. I would think they would have the same name…
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