# Read the first page of Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane Read the opening of Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane free, no signup. A wedding photographer calls off her engagement and moves in with a stranger. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/mad-about-you-mhairi-mcfarlane - Genre: Romance - Year: 2022 - ISBN: 9780063117952 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780063117952&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780063117952 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780063117952 ## The opening “Hi, you’re the best man? Is it Sam? I’m Harriet, I’m the photographer today.” She raised the Nikon D850, around her neck on a strap, by way of unnecessary corroboration. “Is the groom around?” The best man looked at her with an expression of taut desperation. He was coated in a pastry glaze of sweat, like he’d been brushed with an egg wash and would form a golden crust at 180 degrees. A very awkward pause ensued, where Harriet wondered if he could speak. “He’s gone, Harriet,” Sam croaked, eventually, with wild eyes. He uttered it with the kind of brokenness and weight people usually reserved for when they meant: passed to the other side. “Who’s gone?” “The groom!” The best man gestured with both arms outstretched at the empty space next to him. Harriet checked her watch. Ten minutes to the official kickoff. “Get him back, pronto, or she’ll arrive without him here,” she whispered urgently. “That’s the idea,” said Sam, who looked as if he were having an anesthesia-free foot amputation aboard a haunted boat in a storm. “He’s gone-gone. For good.” “What? Gone? As in . . .?” “As in has departed the premises, is declining to get married,” Sam said under his breath, eyes bulging. “What the fuck!” Harriet hissed. “Did he . . . say why?” “I told him he didn’t have to do this if he wasn’t sure, sort of as a JOKE, and he said, ‘Seriously, do you mean that?’ and I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because I don’t want to do this,’ and I said, ‘Is this nerves?’ and he said, ‘No, did you mean it when you said I didn’t have to do it?’ And I had to say, ‘Well, yeah, I guess so?’ and he said, ‘OK, I’m going then, please say I’m sorry.’” Sam said this all in one galloping breath and had to pause to suck in air. He put a steadying palm on his chest, on his pristine white shirt, and when he moved it there was a tragicomic sweaty handprint on the cotton. “I’m going to have to tell Kit he’s jilted her. Oh my fucking life!” “He’s definitely not coming back?” Harriet said. Sam said, closing his eyes, clearly wishing himself able to teleport from this church in the Gothic revival style on the outskirts of Leeds: “Nope.” Harriet had no protocols for this whatsoever. She was hired to take pictures, from the soup to nuts of bridal prep through to the first dance. It didn’t always go to plan—best men got so drunk they slurred the speech, DJs played the uncensored version of the track, and a chocolate fountain once broke and appeared to be pumping out a mixture of kibble and raw sewage. But the knot always got tied. A runaway prospective husband-to-be was off the map, as far as crises went. “Did he tell the vicar?” Harriet said in hushed tones, through a placeholder gritted smile, in case they were under observation. “Yes. He told him at least,” Sam said. “Where’s the vicar now?” “Round the back, having a cigarette.” “What? Are vicars even allowed to smoke?” “I don’t know, but under the circumstances, I didn’t feel I could tell him not to.” Harriet nodded. One for God to judge. “Did I cause this? With my stupid line about how he didn’t have to do it?” Sam genuinely looked like he might cry. “No!” Harriet said, in an emphatic whisper. “This isn’t exactly something you’d do purely through the power of suggestion.” “I should walk out to meet her, shouldn’t I?” Sam said. “It’ll be worse if she gets to the door?” “Oh God—definitely,” Harriet said. The public humiliation would surely be unbearable if everyone saw her in her finery. If they realized at the same time she realized. The Kristina who’d hired Harriet didn’t seem the type to take any disappointment well, let alone catastrophe. She was doll-tiny, with jet-black hair and a self-assured, borderline haughty demeanor. The groom had been too busy to meet Harriet during the standard planning stages, and now she was wondering if that was significant. “If he’s definitely, definitely not coming back?” Sam’s face was panic and agony. “He’s not.” “I can’t believe he’s done this to you. And to her,” Harriet said, aware that it was a slightly odd statement given she didn’t know the tosser. I can’t believe [a total stranger] would behave this way! She glanced at the good-natured, expectant hubbub behind them, feeling crushed on their behalf. “I’ll walk out with you,” she said, and Sam nodded thank you in gratitude. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-wedding-date-jasmine-guillory.md) - [The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-christmas-bookshop-jenny-colgan.md) - [Seat Mates by Anna Harbom](https://uncovered.ink/read/seat-mates-anna-harbom.md) - [A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-love-song-for-ricki-wilde-tia-williams.md) - [The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-unhoneymooners-christina-lauren.md) - [I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella](https://uncovered.ink/read/ive-got-your-number-sophie-kinsella.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. 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