Author: Angela Cervantes
Illustrators: Fatima Anaya and Maike Plenzke
Published: 2026
Summary
Raquel is ready to help her family kick off summer at the family paleta (frozen dessert) shop. She's got the deejay set she was given for her recent tenth birthday, and the Kansas City sun is bringing the heat. It's a great way to start an exciting summer. And in a few days, Raquel and her family are heading to New England for a wedding on her mother's side (her abuela will manage the store while the others are gone). Raquel's especially hopeful she'll be able to reconnect with her cousin Sloan: they always had a good time as younger kids, but it's been half a decade since they've seen each other.
The wedding will be held at the family mansion in Mount Bedford--yes, Samantha Parkington's home. Raquel, her brother, and her cousins are Samantha's great-great-grandchildren. Raquel and Harper (the cousin who's getting married) go to the mansion to look for a "something old" for the wedding, and in searching, Raquel finds Samantha's diary from 1906. She quickly gets to reading it, feeling a deeper connection with her ancestor.
And it turns out to be very handy as well. Sloan seems to run hot and cold, excited to see Raquel at one moment and then cold the next. It's through Samantha's advice of patience that Raquel is finally able to get Sloan to open up: Sloan's birth mother (she was adopted as a baby) has reached out to see if she and Sloan can meet, and now Sloan is worried that she's not really part of her adoptive family. Raquel helps Sloan feel wanted and loved--just in time for them to help a pair of dolphins stranded on the beach. They call Harper (she and her fiancé are marine biologists) and are able to keep the gathering crowd from worsening the situation until professional help arrives.
Raquel and her family are in New England for a long time for the wedding, enough for Raquel to cheer on Sloan and another cousin in a pickleball tournament. Raquel deejays during the event, offering song requests for donations to help dolphin rescue. Her cousins come in second, and donate their $200 prize to funds--and the first-place team does the same with the $500 prize! Raquel and her cousins and brother are able to give the bride and groom over $800 for the dolphin rescue as a wedding present.
And that's not all: just like Samantha Saves the Wedding, there's a problem with the bride's veil: the dry cleaner lost it. Raquel and Sloan remember that they saw a lacy item in the attic, and it turns to be the very same veil worn in the other book's wedding. AND the wedding band comes down with food poisoning, so Raquel does the music for the wedding as well!
Misc
The author dedicates her book to "my primas, who make life more fun!"
Harper (the cousin getting married) gives a brief biography of Samantha Parkington. Most of what she tells we know from the earlier books, but we also learn that Samantha was a teacher who founded a school for girls.
Raquel takes her Pomeranian on the trip... but also on the whale-watching boat tour. That seems like a terrible idea!
Sloan teaches Raquel pickleball. Pickleball is the official state sport of Washington, and was invented on Bainbridge Island (across Puget Sound from Seattle). It's named for the inventor's dog.
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