Two Friends in Marriage is the third book in Jackie Lau’s Weddings with the Moks series. I read the first two last year, enjoying Four Weddings to Fall in Love well enough and found the second book Three Reasons to Run to fall into the best of Lau’s writing. Unfortunately for me the third book had some issues that kept me from loving it in execution as much as I loved it in theory.
Lau is interested in telling stories about characters with diverse sexual orientations and making sure that mental health representation is forefronted. In those ways this book is positioned to be a much needed and interesting story. The titular two friends are Evan Mok and Jane Yin. They are friends from their college days who have never felt a romantic spark about the other, but in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic they agree to get married and build a life together if they are both single after Jane’s 33rd birthday – about 3 and a half years away. Life progresses (almost entirely off-page) and when the fateful day arrives, they go through with this marriage of convenience including a quick engagement and a small but lovely wedding ceremony.
Evan is bisexual and has chronic depression, which has very real ramifications in his relationships and effects how he views himself and his interactions with others. He is on meds that are helping, but it’s not without side effects and is far from a perfect fix. Jane is demisexual and has been single for the better part of a decade following a couple failed relationships and is largely estranged from her surviving absent parent and stepfamily (CW: death of a parent due to cancer). They are each bringing different baggage into their new relationship as spouses, even if it is intended to be platonic, and the narrative here digs into that. I just wish it dug a little deeper. The strength of the learning to be spouses part just outshone the romantic part of the growth for me, and I wish they had felt more connected.
I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book from the author, it has not affected my review. Two Friends in Marriage will be published February 25, 2025.