If you love comic mysteries, love books about wedding planners finding love, and love books about big, close-knit families, you probably loved this one. Need a rundown of the Dial A for Aunties plot? I have a character list and a plot summary of Dial A for Aunties. Then come join our spoiler discussion for Dial A for Aunties
Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
If you do NOT want spoilers, come over to my review of Dial A for Aunties . Or just check it out anyway!
Character List for Dial A for Aunties
The Aunties and the Chen Family
Meddy – the photographer for her family’s wedding planning business
Big Aunt (Da Jie) – pastry chef
Second Aunt – hairstylist
Ma (Natasya) – Meddy’s mother and the florist
Fourth Aunt (Si Mei/”Mimi”)– singer
Other Characters
Jake/Ah Guan – Meddy’s date, who ends up dead
Nathan – Meddy’s college boyfriend
Jacqueline – bride at the wedding
Tom– groom
Maureen – best friend of the bride
Plot Summary for Dial A for Aunties
Meddy, her mom, and her three Indo-Chinese-American aunties run a wedding planning business in Southern California. Their latest project is a huge wedding for the daughter of an Indonesian textile tycoon and the son of a billionaire. Meddy has sacrificed for her close-knit family, including breaking up with Nathan, her college boyfriend and the love of her life, so she could stay in California and work in the family business as a wedding photographer.
Just before the big wedding, Meddy learns that her mom impersonated her on an online dating site and set up a date for her with a guy named Jake. She meets Jake for dinner. Afterwards, Meddy decides she’s too drunk to drive, so Jake offers to drive her home in her car. While driving, he makes a pass at her and she starts to feel unsafe, so she uses her taser on him and the car crashes.
Meddy regains consciousness and sees Jake next to her, dead. She puts him in the trunk of her car and drives home. Her mother assembles all the aunties to deal with the crisis. They decide to hide him in a cooler inside the walk-in fridge at Big Aunt’s bakery.
The next morning, they learn that the cooler has been moved to the wedding venue, a resort on Santa Lucia, an island off the coast.
Meddy and the aunties head to the island. Meddy is stunned to discover that the owner of the resort hotel is … Nathan. She awkwardly greets him and introduces him to her family. When they find the cooler with the body in it, they discover that Jake was actually alive when they put him inside and had been trying to get out. Now he’s definitely dead. The group decides that Meddy and Fourth Aunt will drive the body back to the mainland. They are rolling the cooler across the island when they run into Nathan, who insists on storing it for them. As Nathan starts to open the cooler, Meddy kisses him to distract him, then puts the cooler back in the walk-in.
Meddy takes photos of the bride and her stunning wedding jewelry. The aunties want to try one more time to move the cooler off the island, but they are thwarted yet again, and decide to stash the cooler in Meddy’s hotel room. They discuss ways to get rid of the body and decide to remove Jake from the cooler and dress him in a groomsman’s suit so they can smuggle him out.
Meddy goes to see the bride, Jacqueline, who is upset that her groom and his groomsmen are very drunk.The bridal party assembles to give the bride and groom lavish gifts. Second Aunt calls Meddy to tell her that Jake’s phone has been ringing. Meddy checks the phone and sees that the bride’s BFF Maureen has been texting and calling Jake. Meddy goes to to look for Maureen and finds a duffel bag filled with stolen wedding jewelry. She figures out that Jake and Maureen were plotting to steal the jewels. Meddy hides the duffel bag of jewels in her closet until she can return it.
Nathan shows up at Meddy’s hotel room to resume their make-out session, but he sees Jake’s body in her room, assumes Meddy is sleeping with someone else, and leaves. Meddy’s mother finds her crying and Meddy tells her about her history with Nathan. They realize that Nathan left his master key card in Meddy’s room.
Maureen calls Jake’s phone and tells him that someone found the duffel bag of jewels and suggests they frame Meddy. But Meddy uses the master key card to hide the duffel in Maureen’s room. Maureen texts Jake’s phone and tells him he better have planted the jewels in Meddy’s room because she’s going to tip off the police. Meddy, panicked because the body is still in her room, calls her mom and tells her to move the body ASAP.
Meddy is summoned by Nathan and told that the wedding gifts are missing and that Maureen says Meddy stole them. Meddy agrees to let security search her room and, when they find nothing, she suggests they search Maureen’s room. The jewels are there, but the bride refuses to press charges.
It’s time for the wedding and, as Meddy prepares to take photos, she realizes that Jake is one of the groomsmen, being propped up Weekend at Bernie’s style. But the groomsmen (who it turns out were hired for the wedding) are all drunk and start falling in the pool. The bride comes to help and Meddy pushes her away, but she also falls in the pool. In all the chaos, someone realizes Jake is dead. The aunties fish Meddy out and confess that they drugged the groomsmen with absinthe spiked with cannibis oil.
The sheriff arrives to investigate Jake’s death, and arrests Nathan. Meddy, upset, confesses to the aunts that she never wanted to be a wedding photographer. Then she goes to the police station and pretends she’s Nathan’s lawyer. She confessed to Nathan that she killed Jake, and he says he figured it out and is sorry that he let her break up with him all those year ago.
Meddy heads back to her room at the resort, where she finds Maureen has tied up all the aunties at gunpoint. Maureen says she knows that Meddy killed Jake and that Meddy needs to get the wedding gifts back for her or she’ll tell everyone. Meddy goes to the bridal suite to find Jacqueline in tears over Maureen’s betrayal. Meddy realizes that Jacqueline is in love with Maureen. She arrives back at her room and tells Maureen that Jacqueline willingly handed over the gifts. Jackie shows up and the two embrace.
Meddy, Jackie, Maureen and the aunties show up at the police station and explain that Jake was trying to steal the gifts, panicked and hid in the cooler, then suffocated and died. Since the police don’t have a better explanation, they let Nathan go.
Meddy gets back together with Nathan. Jacqueline and Maureen get married and Meddy photographs the wedding. Nathan proposes.
What are your thoughts about this one? Talk to me in comments!
Thank you for helping to reassure me I was not wrong to ditch this dud as soon as Meddie woke up in the car. (I didn’t even get to her discovery before noping out!) You’ve reassured me that the plot only gets worse and that the reason she broke up with Nathan was the dumbest one imaginable. Already was getting so irritated by the character’s verbal tics. Wanted so much to like this, because heaven knows, we need diverse books, but this wasn’t amusing, just annoying.
Sorry this one wasn’t for you. The plot was definitely wacky, but I liked the humor!