ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID

For any bridesmaid who's gone down the aisle too many times accompanying others, Lyles's uneven but perky debut will provoke many grins and groans. Wedding-weary Cate Padgett, kindergarten teacher, freelance photographer and reluctant San Diego single, has endured more than her share of "bride's slave" duties. She's had to buy overpriced shower presents, don nightmarish wedding garb she can hardly afford and suffer through a bachelorette party where she's given a lipstick vibrator for a favor, along with a penis crown she's supposed to wear while having a lap dance from a male stripper her pal Val calls "Cheesedick." Cate would much rather plan her own wedding, but she's having trouble figuring out who her groom should be—GQ -cool "No Call Paul" or her faithful friend, caterer Ethan Blakely? Although Lyles's prose style wavers from wooden to wonderful, her eye for delightful details—a bride who becomes a controlling and fiendishly demanding diva, the ubiquitous wedding drunk, over-orchestrated "fairy tale" touches that backfire (brides falling off of bucking horses are so not Martha Stewart) and a freakish costume change at a Hotel del Coronado wedding that leads to Cate's happy ending—makes this the ultimate bridesmaid gift. Agent, Julie Burton at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. (Feb. 3)