Nora Roberts’ “Vision in White”

Not just another Wedding Day

By Kathleen Knapp

Nora Roberts is a veteran of the Romance genre, so perhaps it is surprising that she has yet to address the subject of weddings. But the reason for her hesitancy becomes clear in the first installment of her Bride Quartet. A Vision in White could easily have been another trite portrayal of a woman’s desire to get married.  But Nora uses her prodigious skill to show marriage through another’s eyes—the eyes of a wedding photographer.  This book offers all the conventions of romance and chick-lit, but with the Nora Roberts twist: good writing.

In the character of Mac, Nora has created a woman conventional enough to be relatable yet quirky enough to be interesting. Mac is a photographer of weddings who doesn’t believe that love is for her. The possibilities are endless, and those familiar with romance novels will know that she must find her opposite—she does, in the form of a high school English professor who owns a three-legged cat. Naturally, the course of love cannot run smooth, and the budding relationship is eventually threatened by both a jealous ex and Mac’s insecurities. However, as they must, the lovers eventually reconcile and decide to live happily for now, rather than ever after.

Through all this romantic turmoil is a true convention of chick-lit: four friends who run a wedding planning company, and who all coincidentally have extremely different personalities. They shop for shoes, they flirt with men, and they are all on the seemingly hopeless search for love, all in addition to being independent career women. The reader should see the next three books unfolding before them in a heartbeat.

But despite these potentially cliché aspects, Nora’s lyrical and heartfelt writing style saves this volume from the depths of insincerity. Though her characters experience the conventional events and attributes of every romance novel in history, they are genuine and organic, and it is clear from the words on the page that Nora Roberts is invested wholeheartedly. It is this emotional investment that makes the book ultimately touching, and as is always the case with Nora Roberts’ works, engrossing and satisfying to read.