Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Wedding Girl by Madeleine Wickham

2 Star

At the age of eighteen, in that first golden Oxford summer, Milly was up for anything. Rupert and his American lover, Allan, were an important part of her new, exciting life, so when Rupert suggested to her that she and Allan should get married to keep Allan in the country, Milly didn’t hesitate.

Ten years later, Milly is a very different person and engaged to Simon—who is wealthy, serious, and believes her to be perfect. Milly’s secret history is locked away so securely she has almost persuaded herself that it doesn’t exist—until, only four days before her elaborate wedding. To have and to hold takes on a whole new meaning when one bride’s past catches up with her and bring the present crashing down.



Kathryn - 2 Star

At first I wasn’t sure about the flow of The Wedding Girl, because I wasn’t attached to the characters the initial scene didn’t have a lot of draw for me. The story then jumped suddenly to ten years or so in the future and the connect ion for me was still lacking.  However I kept reading and did become involved in the story and the characters eventually.

Unfortunately even though I became involved I didn’t relate warmly to any of them and found the misunderstandings and confusion a bit frustrating and unrealistic.  The premise of the entire novel was unlikely to me so it was hard for me to sympathise with the problems.  I really could hardly believe that Milly would be able to keep to herself such a secret- especially as to me the secret really wasn’t anything to be so secretive about!


There were a few relationships that I did appreciate, (for example the connection between Milly and her sister as well as the relationship between Milly’s parents) and these probably were what kept me reading until the end. I felt her parents had a realistic break in their communication and could see reconciliation would be possible also for them and the sisters were really supportive of each other and I liked that.


In the end The Wedding Girl was fun and easily readable but I’ve enjoyed other Wickham and Kinsella novels more.

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