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Lucy Lovett can’t remember the last seven months of her life. She doesn’t remember leaving her fiancé Zac Callahan weeks before their wedding or moving to Portland, Maine. And she sure doesn’t remember getting engaged to another man. All she remembers is loving Zac more than life itself. Zac was just beginning to get his life back on track after Lucy left him with no explanation. And now she’s back—vulnerable, homeless, and still in love with him. Has he been given a second chance with the only woman who stirs his passion and haunts his dreams? Lucy knows she must unlock those missing months and discover why she threw everything away. And Zac knows that if he follows his heart he’ll win back the love of his life—but if Lucy’s memory returns, his would-be bride might say goodbye forever.

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Lucy Lovett wakes with a huge knot on her head, wearing a wedding dress she doesn't recognize, and she seems to be on the bathroom floor of a diner in Portland, Maine... three hours away from her hometown of Summer Harbor (still in Maine). She does remember she is engaged though, so even though she doesn't understand how she ended up on this bathroom floor, she assumes it's somehow her wedding day... though she thought that day was still months away. Once she gathers her thoughts, she calls fiancee Zac Callahan for help. Problem is, he's actually not her fiancee anymore. They had a painful split, one that ended with Lucy suddenly splitting town, so Zac's confused as to why he's getting a call from her now, like 7 months later. Lucy has no memory of any of that. In fact, she can't remember anything about her life prior to the last date she had with Zac all those months ago. Both Lucy and Zac are incredibly confused, but Zac doesn't want to leave her stranded if she's seriously hurt, so he drives the three hours to her. He takes her to the hospital to get checked out, and then reluctantly agrees to take her back to Summer Harbor to hopefully regain her memory in formerly familiar surroundings. 

Lucy may not remember what went down between her and Zac that led to their split, but the rest of the town sure does! Lucy comes to find that she has another fiancee, one she met in Portland, but him and that life seem to belong to a Lucy she doesn't know or understand. She simply wants to start over again in Summer Harbor, just wanting a simple job to help her regain her independence, but no one seems willing to hire her. Thankfully, Lucy finds a friend in Eden, Zac's soon-to-be sister-in-law, who helps put the pressure on Zac to put grudges aside for a minute and be nice to the poor girl while she tries to get her head straightened out. 

As luck would have it (or maybe not, lol) Zac gets short-staffed at his restaurant, so he agrees to let Lucy help temporarily. She also lives in the spare room of his apartment, since she has no other options. The close quarters force the two to little by little talk out their hurts and differences, getting down to the truth of what happened. Meanwhile, Lucy's medical ordeal hits local news outlets, dubbing her the "Runaway Bride", making her a target for paparazzi as well as cluing her in as to some shady details surrounding that other former flame of hers. Lucy tries to maneuver the two men the best she can, fervently hoping her memories, any of them, will come back and help her unravel what she did and why she did it, and what it means for her future. 

I didn't go into this one with super high expectations. I was provided a review copy but it initially didn't sound like my kind of thing. Still, I have a rule that if someone gives me a book, I always at least try it out. The Goodbye Bride actually ended up being quite the good time for me! For the first time in a long while, I was able to read a romance where I not only liked the two main characters together, but also individually! (Usually it's one or the other for me.) But yeah, I loved Lucy and Zac as a couple! Sure, there were little things that bugged me a smidge, like Lucy's supposedly Southern accent -- except that she sounded like she stepped off a plantation from back in the day and this story is in modern times. Then there were some grammatical quirks that were only mildly grating -- like the word "glowered" being used four times in the span of four chapters or this one line that read, "There were only several baskets left." Only several? I dunno, that just read weird to me, my brain keeps wanting to read it sarcastically. Also, when the lovey-dovey bits get super amped near the end, there were a few lines there where it crossed over from cute to okay, bit over the top there.  As far as Lucy's emotional turmoil that comes to a head near the end and the resolution written around that, that part fell a little flat for me. I was expecting her to dig a little deeper since the rest of the book seemed to put so much emphasis on how much her painful past affected her. Given all that build up, the solution near the end was, to me, like "Oh, that's it? A day and a half and you're all good?!"

That said, I stand by this being a really cute and, for the most part, believable romance with just enough mystery thrown in to keep it light but intriguing enough to keep the pages moving. If you like stories like The Vow, I would recommend checking this one out. 

This is Book 2 in Hunter's Summer Harbor Christian romance series. I haven't read Book 1 yet, but heard that some character names from the first book do pop up here. I never felt confused reading this one though, so I would say this one reads easily as a stand-alone novel. I'll definitely be looking forward to more of Hunter's books in the future! 

FTC Disclaimer: TNZ Fiction Guild kindly provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.