Book Review: Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

    

DIAL A FOR AUNTIES

by

Jesse Q. Sutanto

About the Book

What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?

You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It's the biggest job yet for the family wedding business—"Don't leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!"—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie's perfect buttercream flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy's great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?

***

My Thoughts

DIAL A FOR AUNTIES by Jesse Q. Sutanto is hard to categorise. I came for the murder and the romance but it’s the family relationships and comedy that really shine through.

Meddy Chan’s life is starting to chafe. She’s 26. She lives with her mother. Her three Aunts live within 10 minutes of her house, but they all spend a lot of time together – a lot. And she works as a photographer in the family business. Close doesn’t really describe how close this family is.

Life is further complicated when Meddy accidentally kills her blind date.  For “reasons”, calling the police is out, so who else to call but her Aunties? Sure, they are interfering and their guilt game is first class, but they immediately drop everything to help Meddy.

So ensues a lot of mayhem as Meddy and her Aunts attempt to get rid of a body while juggling work on the day of the high profile wedding day of a very wealthy couple. And to top it all off, Meddy crosses paths with Nathan - her great college love and manager of the island resort where the wedding is taking place.

Yes, you have to suspend some, okay, a lot belief when it comes to the crime element of this story, but just go with it. The reward is a wonderful and funny story about the ups and downs of a loving yet equally meddlesome family. 

 

I love libraries! I borrowed this book from my local library. 

About the Author

Jesse Q Sutanto is the author of Dial A for Aunties, The Obsession, and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Oxford University, though she hasn't found a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. The film rights to her women’s fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war. The novel will be out in April 2021. Jesse lives in Indonesia with her husband, her two daughters, and her ridiculously large extended family, many of whom live just down the road.

https://www.jesseqsutanto.com/