The Stand-in Dad by Alex Summers Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: family life fiction, queer fiction, relationship fiction
Pages: 363
Published by Avon on April 24, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
Something old, something new, someone borrowed… Forty years ago, sixteen-year-old David was heartbroken when his family rejected him for coming out. Since then, he has vowed to always help anyone in need. So, when he finds a tearful young woman outside his flower shop, he can’t just walk away.
Meg is newly engaged to the love of her life, Hannah. She should be overjoyed, but her conservative parents have made their disapproval painfully clear – leaving Meg devastated and wanting to call the whole wedding off.
But David won’t let another young person be rejected. He offers to be Meg’s ‘stand-in dad’, diving headfirst into dress fittings, cake tastings, and venue visits to make sure Meg’s special day is unforgettable.
Yet Meg’s parents’ absence looms large – and when disaster strikes, can David save the wedding in time?
The Stand-in Dad is a joyful story about found family and the courage to embrace love’s true colours, perfect for fans of Matt Cain, Mike Gayle and Ryan Love.
My Review:
I picked this up because of the title. The idea of a ‘stand-in’ dad – for any reason – just sounded so very appealing. The book looked like it would be just wonderfully warm and fuzzy – which is just what I was looking for and also exactly what it turned out to be.
Meg and Hannah are engaged to be married when the story opens. They are already on the road to their happy ever after, but that road is not running smoothly. Not because they have a problem, but because Meg’s parents are being asshats. (I just imagined Meg’s mother wearing her ass as a hat because she’s exactly the type to wear hats and OMG its hilarious and awful at the same time)
So Meg is hunched outside the door of the florist shop that her mother was supposed to meet her at, crying because her mother is doing passive aggressive asshattery by ghosting her own daughter, and fate steps in. Or rather, the florist, David Fenton, steps out of HIS florist shop and into the role of Meg’s stand-in dad.
Not that it doesn’t take a while, but it’s something that they both need. Meg needs help, a shoulder to cry on, a confidante, and someone maybe a bit older if not wiser just to be there for her. David needs a do-over, he needs to be the parent he didn’t have when he came out as teenager and walked away from his own parents’ rejection with a hole in his heart. His parents are long dead, and that hole can’t be healed by fixing that relationship.
But maybe it can be healed by paying forward the relationship he wanted but didn’t have. AND he’ll get to help plan a wedding for someone he comes to love and wants to support as if she was his own daughter.
What makes this story beautiful is the way that Meg and David manage to heal each other even as they draw an entire community around the wedding of Meg’s – and her fiancée Hannah’s – dreams. And if that dream wedding is more than a bit untraditional every step of the way – even before Mother Nature intervenes in a really big way to make it even more so – it’s all icing on a very eclectic raft of wedding cupcakes. And it’s glorious.
Escape Rating A: This was the book that was calling my name this weekend, and I’m really happy that I answered that call because it was absolutely the right book at the right time for this reader. Even if it may seem like its a bit early for a review, which it both is and isn’t. If you can’t resist the call either, the ebook is available NOW. The US paperback will be available at the end of May.
Don’t let the ‘romance’ label on this book set up any expectations. It’s not a romance – and that’s a marvelous thing in this instance. It is, however and very much, a story about relationships. And it’s an absolutely lovely and terrific feel-good story that will have you turning the last page with a big smile on your face.
It certainly did for me.
What made me love this one so hard – which I absolutely did – is not just the father-daughter relationship that grows between David and Meg, but the way that they gathered their friends and loved-ones and the whole entire community into the process of both celebration and healing.
There’s a lovely symmetry in the way that helping to plan Meg’s wedding opens David up to re-examining his reasons for not wanting to marry his own life partner in spite of how much Mark would really like to marry him now that it’s possible.
At the same time, David has thrown himself into Meg’s wedding planning to push off dealing with the fact that his shop is failing and his dream is dying and he doesn’t know what he’ll do next. Until it all comes together in a way that is utterly delightful – even if it does feel a bit too good to be true in all the best ways.
There are a lot of things in their situations that turn out to be sort of sideways parallels that mean that both Meg and David grow and change and expand their circles of friends and found family in ways that reach beyond just the wedding. Which, of course, turned out to be wonderful even if it was nothing like was originally planned. It was better.
What makes the story work – and gives it its sweetness – is that the reader feels like a part of that found family. I cared so much about both of them and their struggles, and was so mad at Meg’s parents – considerably angrier than she was because I cared about her a lot and didn’t care about them at all beyond wanting to hit them in the head with a gigantic clue-by-four.
If you’re looking for a feel-good story with a happy ending that doesn’t rely on romance to get there, The Stand-in Dad is a marvelously uplifting read and a terrific debut novel.
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