The Wedding Girl

by Madeleine Wickham

Reviewed by Coral

Milly is happily engaged to a perfect man. Simon is good-looking, wealthy and absolutely adores her. With their marriage rapidly approaching, everything should be perfect. But Milly has a secret.

At eighteen she married a man so that he could stay in the country and she’s never gotten divorced. Now with someone threatening to reveal her secret, her perfect life is about to come crumbling down around her.

I think this book was trying to tell too many stories. If it had just been about the emotional fallout that Milly’s secret had on her relationship, I think I might have enjoyed her more. But on top of that we had an abandoned son’s strained relationship with his father, a marriage falling apart, a late in life coming out of the closet, an overly attached relative with an ulterior motive and an unexpected pregnancy. There just wasn’t enough time for each of the stories to be properly addressed, given the length of the book. I truly believe that the only reason a specific character was revealed to be the father in the unexpected pregnancy story line was just to avoid introducing another character. I think the other story line that suffered the most from the cluttered book was the relative with the ulterior motive, because no history was given for their actions to make any kind of sense.

Grade: C