This has always been my favorite book of this miniseries, and I suppose it still is. It holds up beautifully and serves as a good bridge between the previous angst-driven books and the upcoming showdown in #100.

The centerpiece is, of course, the Fowler (re-)wedding, as depicted on the cover. I've always kinda loved that we never see Grace's face. She's forever an enigma of the series, having disappeared from Lila's life at an early age, and her being gone is part of the root of Lila's issues (the other being that her father gives her everything money can buy, but withholds the one thing it can't: his attention). Even now, at the crowning of her triumphant return, we don't really see her. Well played, cover artist!

The novel opens with Lila throwing a big luncheon to introduce her mother to all of her SVH friends. She's super proud and happy, and is deep in matchmaking mode, in spite of what her mother told her in the last book. She's determined to get her parents back together, and what Lila wants, Lila gets. There's only one thing standing in her way: Pierre the Pill, her mother's French ~lover~ who insists on inserting his irritating, melodramatic self into everything. He even crashes Lila's luncheon. Grace pleads with Lila to give him a chance, but of course Lila's having none of that. Her resolve is strengthened when she learns that the reason Amy leaves so abruptly is because Pierre cornered her and tried to assault her. Pierre's not merely a pest, but he's a sex pest, too.

Lila sweeps him off his feet and "treats" him to a day around Sweet Valley: a greasy breakfast, a whirlwind shopping trip, tennis at the club, and lunch in the desert, where he mostly drinks and smokes. He's a complete mess by the time they make it back to Fowler Crest, which is of course what Lila wanted. They are supposed to meet her parents at an elegant LA restaurant, and Lila wants to insure that her mother sees George in his best light, and Pierre at his worst.

She needn't have bothered. Her parents are glowing at each other all through dinner, and George pops the question mere moments before Pierre makes his loud, drunken entrance. Lila follows him as he's escorted out of the restaurant and threatens to tell Grace about his assaulting Amy if he doesn't leave, posthaste. Personally, I think she should've said something to Grace anyway, because gross. Any grown man who puts his hands on a teenage girl is disgusting and deserves to have that little fact amplified across town (the world). But, Lila's so thrilled that Grace has agreed to marry George that she lets it drop.

Unfortunately, whatever groveling George has done to make up for the fact that he once had Grace declared an unfit mother is done off-page. Grace has decided to forgive him and remain with him. We see this all from Lila's perspective, so of course there is a rosy glow emanating from this whole scene. It doesn't cut much ice with me as an adult, but I'm willing to be swept away by my nostalgia. Besides, we need the wedding setup as the social event of the season to push all of the other plots forward.

At Lila's luncheon, Jessica finally has a realization that her whole plan to steal Todd away from her sister as punishment for Elizabeth is just not working. She doesn't like Todd, Todd is miserable and pulling away anyway, and none of this has assuaged Jessica's guilt for spiking the punch at prom and being the catalyst for Sam's death in the first place. When Todd finally dumps her, jessica visits Sam's grave again and has a good long cry and comeapart, and realizes that the only way to begin healing from her boyfriend's death is to celebrate his life. So she throws herself into planning a memorial dirt bike rally. Jessica never had a ton of interest in dirt biking before, but she's so enthusiastic and sincere that everyone immediately hops on board to help make it a big success.

Jessica gives a very emotional speech at the opening of the rally, and raises quite a bit of money for SADD. She also meets a new man: the mysterious late entry Black Lightning appears at the last minute and wins the entire race in thrilling fashion. He unveils himself on the winner's stand, and Jessica is instantly smitten. Black Lightning's real name is James, and he falls just as hard for Jessica - or so it seems.

James has an ulterior motive, however: he's been paid to enter and win the race by Margo, who finds him one night at Kelly's, bemoaning his broken bike. Margo has visions of motorcycles dancing in her head, but James puts her clear. When Margo learns of the rally from the newspaper, she pays James to fix his bike and win the race, and then to start pumping Jessica for a TON of information about herself and her family. Margo rightly guesses that Jessica will be so dazzled by an older man paying such close attention to her that she'll barely even notice what James is doing.

Jessica is appropriately dazzled, and apparently gives James every detail of her life, including a floorplan of her house (!), which James dutifully passses along to Margo, along with piles and piles of pictures. Margo has already staked out the Wakefield house on Calico Drive, watching each member of her "new family" quite closely, and even assists Alice Wakefield with the groceries one random afternoon.

Margo also learns about the Fowler wedding and schemes her way in as part of the catering team. The owner of the catering business doesn't take her on right away, so Margo kills one of the other applicants for the job by running her over with a rental car. Margo gets into the wedding and spends as much time as she can around Elizabeth, enough to rouse the suspicions of Liz's date, Winston.

Margo's also starting to get a little careless and reckless - she comes thisclose to killing her boss in the Fowler kitchen because she can't get outside to spy on Elizabeth fast enough. Really, Margo? You're going to leave a bloody crime scene at Fowler Crest and think you aren't going to draw attention to yourself?? Mercifully, she's allowed out before she has to drawn blood over it, and she goes out and watches Elizabeth and her friends, listening to the idle gossip from the other SVHers to learn about Todd.

Todd has finally put on his big boy pants and attempts to approach Liz a couple of times. First he offers her a ride home from school one day (which Liz rejects), then he approaches her at the wedding and requests a slow dance, which Liz accepts. They don't actually speak to each other, and indeed end the dance crying, but it's one of those sigh-worthy romantic moments that I'm just completely hopeless about. (It put me in mind of Shawn and Belle's dance at their senior year Last Blast, after they'd been estranged for most of the school year.)

The last little storyline going on is that Josh Smith is still hot on Margo's heels, determined to hunt her down and make her pay for killing his brother Georgie. Georgie's death has sent Josh's mother into an alcoholic spiral, and the police aren't taking everything seriously enough for Josh's taste, so he's basically a lone teenage vigilante at this point. He pounds the pavement in LA for most of this book, but finally realizes the significance of Margo reading the Sweet Valley News on the train to San Diego, and gets back on track of hunting her down.

Per the timeline of this book, two months have passed since Grace's return to Sweet Valley. Everything's moving awfully quickly, and I don't even think this puts us into the summer season yet (everyone's still in school), but somehow in two books' time we'll be at Christmas. My, how time flies. ( )