The Wedding Girl (Center Point Platinum Romance (Large Print)) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Madeleine Wickham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2009 | Series: Center Point Platinum Romance (Large Print)

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.

With her trademark style of keen insight, and razor sharp wit, Madeleine Wickham introduces her fanatical fan-base, plus a host of new readers to a fresh and irresistible heroine in The Wedding Girl.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The usually reliable Wickham (Shopaholic series author Sophie Kinsella's alter ego) falters with this overplotted and heavy-handed smorgasbord of weddings and family shenanigans. Upon meeting wedding photographer Alexander Gilbert, Milly Havill realizes that he had photographed her when she first married 10 years earlier. Since that wedding was done as a favor to help keep Allan Kepinski, the American half of a gay couple, in England, Milly never told anyone about it, including her now-fiancé, Simon Pinnacle. The thought of Alexander revealing her past sends Milly into a panic. But that's just the beginning: Simon is bent on bettering his multimillionaire father in business and in marriage; Milly's bitter father, James, seems to appreciate Milly's independent older sister, Isobel, more than Milly; Isobel gets pregnant and is certain the father would not want a baby; and Rupert, the other half of the couple Milly had helped out, is now a born-again Christian. Unfortunately, the characters' struggles with identity, abortion and homosexuality are filtered through strained prose and too-obvious setups. A lighter touch and a tighter story would have helped. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“A wry and incisive novel that leaves you guessing til the end”
—Sunday Post --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Center Point Pub; Lrg edition (July 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602854750
• ISBN-13: 978-1602854758
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,954,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well observerved, well told., February 9, 2002

By 

Lynda Finn "New Zealand author" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wedding Girl (Paperback)

There can be few people whose spines do not prickle with apprehension at the moment the preacher asks: 'Does anyone know any just cause why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony....?'
Our heroine is about to be the centre of a society wedding which will hit every front page in the land. She's marrying the son of one of the world's richest men and her mother, a social-climber extraordinaire, is fussing and list-making 24 hours a day.
Everything is set, guests are being helicoptered in, the organist is flying from Geneva, ice swans are being sculpted.....there is just one small problem. Ten years before the bride married a gay friend for immigration purposes, and never actually got a divorce! When the photographer recognises her, she is thrown into a panic and tries, in secret to "put matters right". She has less than 4 days to find and divorce a man she hasn't seen in a decade.
Madeleine Wickham knows people so well and draws them beautifully. The set-aside father, bemused by his wife's tireless efficient anxiety, the dizzy bride who somehow thought that if she didn't admit to the previous wedding it would go away, the career-girl sister who is always so in control of her life (or is she?).
You know people like this - and if you don't - the author brings them to life on the page so vividly that when you reach the last page you have the feeling you are saying goodbye to old friends.
Intertwined in this desperate dash to save face, is a sadder story of how it is still not always possible to be proud of being gay, or to accept who you really are.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Stick with Kinsella instead of Wickham, July 1, 2009

By 

Kathy Kaiser - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wedding Girl (Hardcover)

Why do I keep trying to read Madeline Wickham books? It's those darn book jackets that pull me in. I'm expecting a fun, frothy beach read (like her Kinsella books), and they are nothing of the kind. When she writes as Kinsella, she is funny, witty, romantic, and enjoyable. As Madeline Wickham, she creates unappealing characters and boring plotlines. In this instance, she makes Simon so unappealing that the reader never warms up to him. Why would I want him to get the girl? I don't. Molly, the heroine, is sweet, but frustrating. She is never honest with her loved ones. The "secret" theme has been done ad nauseum, and this sheds absolutely no new light on it. I think if the book jackets were more appropriate to the slower, more serious story lines, I would have the proper expectations when I buy one. However, this is nothing like the fun chick lit it appears to be and that I enjoy reading occasionally. It's bland and completely forgettable.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Keep Or Not to Keep A Secret? That is the Question..., November 2, 2005

By 

dessert - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wedding Girl (Paperback)

If you don't know, Madeleine Wickham is the real name for Sophie Kinsella (pen name). Yeap, the one who wrote the highly successful Shopaholic series. Under her real name of Madeleine Wickham, she wrote several books which have more substance than the frothy ones under Sophie Kinsella. That's why she used a pen name to keep her styles of writing apart.

The Wedding Girl is one such book with much meaty substance. She must have germinated her ideas for "Can you Keep A Secret?" which she wrote later under Sophie Kinsella from this earlier book, The Wedding Girl.

Are secrets better left unearthed or are they better off exposed to those that concern you? How would it affect relationships that have formed preconceived set values and change the dynamics? Will it be the same? That is the recurring fear harboured by Milly Havill who got married for a frivolous reason 10 years ago and now has to un-do that marriage in order to marry the person she truly loves.

Familiarity breeds contempt within the family. This is the ongoing theme in the book, you think you know someone too well and you begin to perform selective memory. You only bring up characteristics that you dislike about them which becomes all too consuming for you and bury their good points fathoms deep. That is until someone from outside your immediate family brings to you a new perspective on their characters.

The author deftly handles the multitude of secrets harboured by several characters. The secrets harboured here are definitely more grounded in reality than those in "Can You Keep A Secret?".

Read it or you will miss out on a much earlier Sophie Kinsella very sophisticated story telling skills!!!