Save the Date: A Novel - Brossura

Kass, Mallory

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1668094479 ISBN 13: 9781668094471

Casa editrice: Atria, 2026

Riassunto

A romantic comedy of manners about a lavish wedding weekend gone very, very wrong with the slow-burn romance of Emily Henry and the fizzy humor of Sophie Kinsella.

The Bride: Beautiful, seemingly carefree Marigold is tired of being treated like a shallow it-girl. That’s one of the many reasons she’s excited to marry Jonathan—the handsome, kind, respectable doctor of her dreams. So when a shocking secret from her past threatens to ruin her wedding, she’ll do anything to make it disappear...even if it means tracking down a man she vowed to avoid forever.

The Maid of Honor: As the bride’s best friend, all Natalie wants is for this wedding to go off without a hitch. There’s only one problem: Natalie has secretly been in love with the groom since college. When Marigold disappears, Natalie is forced to ask whether she can keep burying her feelings for the sake of friendship...or if she’s ready to risk everything to pursue her own happy ending.

The Sister: Olivia has spent her life cleaning up Marigold’s messes. So she’s determined to keep the wedding on track for the sake of their mother, who’s battling cancer and longs for one last perfect weekend. But when Jonathan’s best man—a prickly academic with a heart of gold—ropes her into a fake dating scheme, sparks unexpectedly fly. Will Olivia sacrifice her own happiness again, or could this fake relationship turn into the truest choice she’s ever made?

Heartwarming, hilarious, and sparklingly romantic, Save the Date will have you cheering for love in all its messy, unexpected glory.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Mallory Kass, also known by the pen name Kass Morgan, is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous young adult novels, including the series The 100, which has been translated into over twenty languages and was adapted into a critically acclaimed hit television series. Save the Date is her adult fiction debut. Follow her on X @KassMorganBooks. 

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

Prologue Prologue
The ceremony was scheduled to start at five p.m., which meant that at 4:55, people began to drift toward the white folding chairs that clung to the edge of the rocky bluff like sea-foam. The advanced guard was composed of the oldest guests who worried about being late, and the youngest guests who were keen to secure an unobstructed view of the lilac-wreathed altar so their photos would be grid-worthy. The majority remained under the tent until 5:10, knowing full well that these things never started on time and that it’d be foolish to leave the shade—and the open bar—earlier than necessary.

By 5:20, nearly everyone was seated, even the women most worried about sweating off their makeup. The string quartet was on their second movement, and the excited chatter began to give way to muted grumbles. “So typical of her,” one guest muttered as she fanned herself with the program.

At 5:35, necks were beginning to pinch from the strain of twisting to scan the bluff for signs of movement. A few minutes later, whispers rippled through the crowd as wide-eyed guests cupped their hands to their dates’ ears, or frantically texted friends sitting in other rows. “Holy shit,” a man in a seersucker suit said, staring at his phone. “I don’t think they’re coming.” A few paces away, the wedding planner stood in her pink suit, her matching lips frozen in a huge, unnatural grin while she spoke ventriloquist-like into her headset. They’d missed their window. Now the altar would have to be moved six inches to the right in order to frame the setting sun, a process far too messy and laborious to perform in front of guests in their light-colored, dry-clean-only finery.

By 5:45, the whispers had given way to a tense, uneasy silence, and the live music took on a slightly manic, desperate quality. Some of the guests were on Zola.com, reading the refund policy on wedding gifts purchased online. A few of the bride’s friends were drafting texts in their Notes app, planning the supportive missives they’d send once the news was confirmed. Love you, girl. Don’t worry—we’re all here for you. Or You’re so brave to listen to your heart!

The wedding planner’s head shot up, eyes widening as she clutched her earpiece. She nodded crisply. “Roger that.” She caught the violinist’s eye and nodded again. A moment later, the musicians seamlessly transitioned to Pachelbel’s Canon, their bows seeming to sigh with relief as they slid across the strings. The guests swiveled and looked around, some faces clearly relieved, others visibly disappointed that the drama was ending.

Or was it?

The couple appeared at the top of the aisle, standing hand in hand as they surveyed their guests with warm smiles. But something was wrong, and the guests squinted for a better look. “Wait,” a woman whispered to her friend. “She’s not…”

“Nope,” her friend confirmed. “Definitely not. What the hell is…”

She trailed off as the officiant cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved, please rise.”


Chapter One: Natalie CHAPTER ONE Natalie
Just relax, Natalie told herself as she approached the check-in desk of the Sandpiper Inn, her best friend’s wedding dress draped over her shoulder. You have every right to be here. The reservation is literally in your name. But even after a decade of friendship, Natalie still felt like an impostor in Marigold’s world.

Part of the problem was that the goalposts kept shifting. It took years before Natalie could make it through dinner with Marigold’s family without making a faux pas like asking for parmesan on her seafood pasta or, horror of horrors, ordering a cappuccino with dessert. (“They’d ban you from Italy for life for that!” Marigold’s stepfather, Bill, had said with a smile. When a red-cheeked Natalie had tried to laugh it off, faux-pleading, “Please don’t report me; I’ve always wanted to go to Italy!” an awkward, pitying silence fell over the table as if Natalie had just admitted she’d grown up without indoor plumbing.) Then just as she found her footing in Marigold’s Manhattan, she was dropped into places with entirely new social minefields to navigate. Who knew you weren’t supposed to wear shoes on a yacht? Or that inquiring what a European did for a living was as uncouth as asking So, how big is your penis?

But this weekend would be different. Natalie wasn’t Marigold’s plus-one at a gala fundraiser where tickets cost more than her yearly salary. She was the maid of honor, a veritable VIP in the wedding world. She half expected to hear murmurs of excitement when she entered the inn with Marigold’s dress. But no one even looked up as Natalie struggled toward the reception area, dragging her heavy suitcases and the cumbersome garment bag. Not even the suited woman behind the desk.

“Hi there,” Natalie said, suppressing a grimace. Hi there was one of the phrases that only slipped out during awkward interactions with strangers. The worst was Have a good one!, which she’d inexplicably started saying after she’d turned thirty, a change as bewildering and unwelcome as the errant chin hairs she’d begun plucking around the same time.

The suited woman behind the desk looked up. “Hello. How can I help?” She had an unplaceable accent—maybe a Brit who’d moved to the US in high school and studied abroad in Sweden?

“I’d like to check in, please. The reservation is under Natalie Pickard.”

“Check-in is at three p.m.,” the woman said with a tight smile.

“I know. But I called last week to confirm early check-in? And I also called yesterday to double-check and was told it wouldn’t be a problem?”

“Check-in is at three p.m.,” the woman repeated. Her tone implied that if Natalie had heard otherwise, it was because she’d hallucinated the conversation or was simply too dense to comprehend the information she’d been given. “You’re welcome to leave your luggage here, if you wish, and we’ll bring it up when your room is ready. At three p.m.”

With a sigh, Natalie hoisted the garment bag onto her shoulder and staggered over to a pair of leather armchairs. The Sandpiper Inn looked like it’d been unchanged since its 1816 founding—all polished mahogany, brass handles, antique silver candlesticks, and oil paintings of distinguished sea captains and wave-tossed whaling ships. Under normal circumstances, Natalie would’ve been delighted to sit and people-watch, relishing how far she’d come from the Cleveland suburbs where she’d grown up. But not when she had urgent errands to run and a twelve-thousand-dollar dress in her possession. She glanced at her phone—it was almost two p.m. and she had to be back at the ferry dock by three to meet the courier delivering the wedding rings. Natalie didn’t mind leaving her suitcases with the bellhop, but she couldn’t risk letting Marigold’s wedding dress out of her sight. Then again, wasn’t it safer to leave it at the inn than to lug them back down to the harbor, where countless dangers lay in wait, from sea spray to motor oil to sugar-mad children brandishing Popsicles?

Olivia never would’ve ended up in this situation, Natalie thought ruefully. There’d been some awkwardness when Marigold had asked Natalie to be maid of honor instead of her older sister. Marigold and Olivia hadn’t always gotten along, but the hypercompetent, intimidatingly organized Olivia would’ve never found herself marooned in the reception area, clutching a custom-designed Danielle Frankel gown. The suited woman never would’ve used a patronizing tone with her; one raised eyebrow from Olivia was enough to make anyone cower, from junior associates at her law firm to the power-tripping hostess at Carbone.

Natalie had vowed to be the world’s best maid of honor—it was the perfect chance to pay Marigold back for all her generosity and to show everyone that Natalie wasn’t a clueless suburban rube. But above all else, it’d assuage the guilt that’d been festering for the past few months. No, years. If Natalie helped make Saturday the best day of Marigold’s life, then she’d be absolved, it wouldn’t matter how many selfish wishes Natalie had whispered in the dark. How many twisted prayers the universe had rightfully seen fit to ignore.

As she fretted about what to do with the dress, she pulled out her phone to check her messages. She’d asked the makeup artist and hairstylist to email her when they’d landed in Portland and found the car Natalie had sent for the two-hour drive up the coast. But when she saw the bolded name in her inbox, her heart lurched, and a familiar mix of hope and dread flooded her chest.

Over the years, she’d developed a ridiculous ritual whenever he emailed her. Instead of opening the message, she’d first fantasize about the contents—sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes longer. She’d allow her mind to flit from one unlikely scenario to another, from the fairly innocuous, like asking if she wanted to meet for drinks, to the laughably improbable—a confession of love. Then once she’d settled on a scenario, she’d write the email in her head, editing the words as carefully as she did her tutoring students’ papers, even though it was entirely imaginary. The longer she spent crafting the message, the more crushing her disappointment when she eventually read the actual text.

Crushing disappointment wasn’t something Natalie could deal with today, so she forced herself to open the email right away, prepared for a businesslike question about logistics for the weekend. But to her surprise, it had nothing to do with ferry schedules or meal selections. She grinned with pleasure at the opening: Hey Bumpy.

She’d first met him in an American Lit seminar in college, and over the course of the semester, as friendly run-ins at the campus coffee shop turned into study sessions and lunch outings, he’d shortened “Natalie” to “Nat,” which morphed into “Natty.” And then when their professor assigned The Deerslayer, “Natty” became “Natty Bumpoo” and eventually “Bumpy,” which he’d called her off and on for the last twelve years. She read on:

Hey Bumpy,

Did you see that Howl’s Moving Castle is playing at the Metrograph next month? There’s still time to redeem yourself. I’ll be in Bora Bora, but I expect a full report from you on my return.

It’d been years since they’d last discussed Natalie’s childhood obsession with Diana Wynne Jones and her irrational fear that watching the Howl’s Moving Castle adaptation would taint her love for the book. This was why Natalie had never been able to get over him, hard as she tried. Just when she’d managed to convince herself that they weren’t anything more than friends, he’d do or say something like this—a small gesture that reminded her how carefully he listened to her. He just has a really good memory, Natalie told herself. It doesn’t mean anything. But she wasn’t sure she truly believed it.

A door opened and the pleasant tang of ocean air wafted into the lobby. Natalie turned and looked longingly at the terrace, where guests were drinking cocktails or having lunch. Surely the dress would be safe with her out there. Feeling a bit like a modern Ms. Havisham, Natalie left her suitcases with the bellhop and carried the garment bag out to the terrace, placing it carefully on the chair across from her. She smiled as she accepted a menu from the waiter, then winced when she scanned the prices. The cheapest entrée was a twenty-eight-dollar club sandwich, fries not included.

With a sigh, she started to log into her banking app to see how much was in her checking account before remembering that she could charge lunch to her room, which Marigold’s parents were paying for. They wouldn’t bat an eye—they’d want to cover her overpriced lunch at the expensive hotel they’d chosen. But there was a difference between accepting an invitation to dinner and billing something to their credit card without permission.

“Would you like to start with anything to drink?” the waiter asked.

“I’m good with water, thanks… No, wait, I’ll have an iced tea.” She glanced at her phone, where her bank balance had finally materialized. “Sorry, water is fine, actually.”

“Are you here for the wedding?” the waiter asked, nodding at the garment bag.

“Yep. I’m the maid of honor–slash–dress courier. I’ve literally taken a plane, trains, and automobiles to get it here. And a boat, of course.”

“Sounds like you could use a drink,” the waiter said. “How about a mimosa? On the house.”

Natalie gratefully accepted and, a few minutes later, felt the stress start to slip away as she sipped the cold, fizzy-sweet cocktail. She loved it up here in Maine, the one part of Marigold’s world where she felt truly at home. She loved that you had to take a ferry to reach Sandpiper Island. (Apart from when she had a wedding dress in tow.) She loved that cars weren’t allowed and that everyone rode around on rusty, squeaky bikes, or lumbering golf carts. She loved drinking coffee on the porch in the morning, taking deep breaths of pine-scented air while seals splashed in the bay. She’d even accepted Bill and Lulu’s invitation to stay at the cottage after Marigold and Jonathan left for their honeymoon. Perhaps she’d finally finish the query letter she’d been rewriting for five months. Part of her was desperate to send her novel off to agents, but the thought of a publishing professional frowning over her manuscript—dismayed that yet another talentless wannabe had wasted their time—made her want to puke.

After mustering the courage to order the club sandwich, which was, after all, a steal compared with the forty-two-dollar lobster roll (fries not included), she opened Instagram and perused the accounts of her fellow bridesmaids, checking for important life updates so she’d be prepared for small talk. Liesl had posted another moody black-and-white photo of her smoking on a fire escape; Bri had gotten one of the new salmon semen facials; Richie shared a selfie of her and Margaret Qualley from their Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot, and based on her excitement over their “newest addition!” Hannah was either pregnant again, adopting a puppy, or renovating their house.

Natalie placed her phone on the table as the waiter arrived with the sandwich, but then her phone buzzed and without thinking, she rushed to grab it, jostling the mimosa she hadn’t realized the waiter had moved to make room. “Sorry, sorry,” Natalie said, using her napkin to mop up the droplets with one hand while she grabbed her phone with the other. Her brain raced through a variety of scenarios: the hairdresser was sick, the guy delivering the ring had (literally) missed the boat. Or maybe, just maybe, this was the text she’d been waiting for, the one where he finally admitted that he’d made a terrible mistake…

But it was just a text from Mrs. Friedlander, the mother of Natalie’s least-favorite student.

“No worries,” the waiter said kindly as he cleaned the stem of her champagne flute with a cloth.

Natalie checked to make sure nothing had spilled on the garment bag, then opened the message with a sigh.

natalie r u free today esme needs help with draft of admissions essay due to college advisor monday. can you call her at 4 thx.

Typical. Natalie had told Mrs. Friedlander three times that she’d be unavailable this weekend, but it never made a difference with the Upper East Side families who comprised the majority of her tutoring clients. They wanted her to be on twenty-four-hour call, just like the rest of their extensive staff.

Hi Mrs. Friedlander, I’m sorry but as we discussed, I’m taking a few days off for a friend’s wedding.

A moment later, Mrs. Friedlander’s reply popped up.

r u serious? esme is freaking out this is very unprofessional.

Natalie rolled her eyes. There was no point in reminding Mrs. Friedlander that Natalie had given her and Esme ample warning, let alone trying to explain why this was an essay Esme needed to at least try to draft herself. For the past two years, Natalie had sat by Esme’s side for hours at a time whenever she had a paper due, guiding her sentence by sentence until they both grew so tired and frustrated that Natalie eventually grabbed the laptop and cranked out the rest for her. Their agreement was that Esme would rewrite it “in her own voice,” but of course, that had never happened. Natalie didn’t have strong moral qualms about enabling Esme’s cheating—everyone at her sixty-thousand-dollar-per-year private school had tutors doing the exact same thing, so the playing field was level. But college applications were a different story. Esme would be competing against all sorts of kids, most of whom didn’t have access to this kind of help. Natalie couldn’t stomach the thought of giving her lazy, entitled, not particularly bright student a leg up. But if she refused, Mrs. Friedlander would bad-mouth her to every mother north of Fifty-Ninth Street.

God, she really needed to sell her book. Even a moderate advance would be enough to let Natalie quit tutoring for a year, enough time to figure out something that’d allow her to pay her bills without mortgaging her soul.

Okay. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll get back to you shortly.

what is bella garfield writing about? I know ur helping her too. she did the same summer program as esme so make sure she doesn’t write about volunteering in mexico that is esme’s topic.

As Natalie did her best to decipher the text—Mrs. Friedlander tended to dictate while she worked out on the Peloton—a voice behind her made her jump. “What are you doing?” Natalie whipped around to see Olivia striding toward her. As usual, Marigold’s older sister looked like she’d come from a work cocktail party in her navy silk sheath dress and heels, her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. “Why is the dress out here?”

“Check-in isn’t until three!” Of course Olivia was going to treat this as the screwup of the century. She was constantly in crisis-management mode, even when there was no crisis. “I couldn’t take anything up to my room.”

“So you decided the best idea was to dump mimosas on it?” She pointed a pinky-beige nail at the single orange droplet that had made its way onto the heavy plastic garment bag. It was so small, Natalie hadn’t noticed. “Are you drunk?”

Natalie could feel her cheeks turning as red as the bottoms of Olivia’s shoes. “Come on, you think I’d get drunk at two in the afternoon?”

“I don’t give a shit what you do on your own time. I just don’t want anything to happen to Marigold’s dress.”

Yeah, right, Natalie thought. You’d love it if something happened to the dress. You’d love to prove that Marigold blew it by not choosing you as her maid of honor.

“Come on,” Olivia said with a sigh, hoisting the garment bag over her shoulder.

Natalie jumped to her feet to follow, then glanced back at her untouched sandwich. “Oh, wait. I need to pay for that.”

“Charge it to the Harding party,” Olivia called to the waiter, ignoring Natalie.

Natalie grabbed her bags and hurried after Olivia, who was moving at an impressive clip given the height of her heels. She followed her back inside and then over to reception, where the same blond woman was still standing behind the desk. Natalie shrank, bracing for another rejection, but as Olivia approached, the woman’s demeanor changed. She looked up right away and greeted Olivia with a smile. “Hello. How may I help you?”

“Yes, hi,” Olivia said briskly. “We’re both checking in. One room under Natalie Pickard, one under Olivia Harding. It’s part of the block for the Harding/Stein wedding.”

“Of course, welcome,” the woman said, fingers tapping on her keyboard. “Just give me one moment…”

“She said I couldn’t check in until three! I swear!” Natalie whispered to Olivia.

“Here you go,” the woman said brightly as she passed each of them an old-fashioned brass key. “Ms. Harding, you’re in room twelve. Ms. Pickard, you’re in room nineteen. I hope you both have a wonderful weekend. If you leave your bags here, I’ll have them sent up right away.”

“Why aren’t you staying with your parents?” Natalie grumbled as she followed Olivia up the wide, gleaming wooden staircase lined with candle sconces and more oil paintings.

“Cell reception is too spotty on that side of the island. I need to be reachable in case a client calls me.”

“You’re working this weekend?”

“I’m always working.” Olivia paused on the first landing. “This is me. I think you’re on the next floor. Do you want me to take the dress?”

“No, I’ll take it,” Natalie said, snatching the bag off Olivia’s shoulder. “I brought it all the way from New York. I think I can handle a flight of stairs.” It came out a little pricklier than she’d intended, so she forced a little laugh. “I’ll see you at the welcome drinks.”

Natalie continued up the stairs, turned into the next hallway, and found room nineteen near the end of the corridor. She fumbled with the key for a moment before managing to turn the heavy lock. The door swung open, and Natalie staggered inside with the heavy garment bag, which she carefully draped over the back of a brocaded armchair before collapsing onto the four-poster brass bed. She needed to close her eyes for a minute before she could muster the energy to head back down to the dock for the ring delivery.

“Jesus Christ!” a male voice said.

Natalie shot up into a seated position and stared wide-eyed at the man who’d apparently just walked out of the bathroom. His dark curls were damp from the shower, making him seem younger and even more boyish than usual, just like it did back in their dorm all those years ago. But for once, Natalie didn’t have to imagine what was under the towel, as this time, he was completely naked.

When their eyes met, the shock on his face faded, replaced by a much more familiar expression—the amused smirk that had been making her heart race for the last twelve years. The one that had kept her awake at night back in college; the one that had lured her to New York years later, causing her to abandon her plans to attend grad school in Scotland.

The one that made her feel like the shittiest maid of honor in the history of weddings.

“Hey, Bumpy,” Jonathan said. “What are you doing in my room?”

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Atria
• Data di pubblicazione: 2026
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1668094479
• ISBN 13: 9781668094471
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 336
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Paesi Bassi