Things are looking up at last for Lizzie Nichols. She has a career she loves in the field of her choice (wedding gown restoration), and the love of her life, Jean-Luc, has finally proposed. Life's become a dizzying whirl of wedding gown fittings - not necessarily her own - as Lizzie prepares for her dream wedding at her fiance's chateau in the south of France.
Her mind is filled with visions of a romantic weekend with her boyfriend Ben, lounging for hours by the pool with a frufru drink in hand, and maybe even getting hitched. She also plans a live, televised version of her popular radio show.
Nervous brides may want to wait until after the wedding to read bestseller Clark's winning ninth mystery to feature PI Regan Reilly (after 2005's Burned). With her wedding to Jack "no relation" Reilly, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, only a week away, Regan thinks she has everything under control. But when she arrives to pick up her wedding dress at Alfred and Charisse's Coutures in Little Italy, she finds the young husband-and-wife designers bound and gagged, a wedding dress shredded on the floor and four others missing, including her own. In spite of all she must do before the wedding, Regan agrees to investigate.