I am a bit of a fan of Sophie Kinsella and have read several of her books now. I was quite surprised when I spotted this book when out shopping as it is written by the same author but under her real name of Madeleine Wickham. I decided that I would give it a go as she is such a good writer and her stories always have good characters and storylines to them. I am very pleased that I did as I thoroughly enjoyed this book and felt it was very different from her other ones.
The story is about Millie, she is due to marry Simon and her mother has token over the whole event and made it a massive occasion with hundreds of guests arriving. Millie’s mother is showing off slightly as Millie is marrying the son of a very wealthy business man. Unbeknown to the family and Simon Millie is hiding a secret, she is already married. AT the age of 18 Millie met two men who became her best friends and when one of them was due to leave the country she married him so he could stay. Millie’s has never told anyone of this secret as she feels if she does not mention it then it will not be real.
However, Millie is about to get a blast from the past when she meets her photographer as he remembers her from the wedding, standing out the front of the registry office showing off her dress. Millie is terrified her secret will come out and confides in her sister Isobel. After some thought Millie decides to head off to London to see if she is still married or whether her husband filed for divorce.
Will Millie get the outcome she wants and be able to marry Simon or will she still be married and have to reveal her secret to the world?
I did find this story very good and I was easily able to get into it. We do have a time difference at the start of the book, we start with Millie being 18 and then swiftly move forward 10 years but this is very easy to follow. I have only given a very brief outline of the story above and there really is a lot more to the story, we have small side stories involving other family members and I felt that these were a very good inclusion in the story as it gave it some depth. I did find the story was simple and very easy to follow and I did not have to concentrate very hard to get all of the information needed either.
All of the character were good in their own way. Millie was the main one and I felt I got to know her very well, there were times when I felt very sorry for her and others when I felt she was acting like a very silly little girl. I enjoyed reading how she handled her problems and was forced to face up to things, she showed a lot of strength throughout the story and this made me warm to her much more. I also found the character of sister Isobel a nice pleasant one, she came across as more level headed and was always on hand to help her little sister out despite having her own issues. She was a little distant at the start of the book but once we got to know more about her I could relate better to her. The parents of Millie were quite the opposite of each other and I really did have to feel sorry for James, his wife had taken over the wedding and had basically forgotten all about him, as we learn from the story they are married but have separate lives and there were times when I felt Olivia needed a good kick up the bum to make her see what she was about to loose. We did have some other good character in the book and I felt we got to know just enough about them to know what roles they played in the story but not too much so the story lost some of the mystery it had.
The writing style was very good and I did find this book very easy to read. We had lots of details included in the story so I was able to get a good mental picture of the characters and the places being talked about but not too much of this so the story lost it’s way. The one thing which I did find missing from this book, as the others from the same author had it, was a little humour. This is a serious story with no little laughs or silly moments in and I felt that maybe a few could have been added to make the story slight lighter. Don’t get me wrong this is by no means a heavy story and it is easy to read but I would have perhaps liked a few daft things from the role of Millie and her handing of her problem.
The book which I have is the paper back edition and this has a total of 366 pages, this may seem like a lot but once you get into the story you really loose track of this and there were a few times when I was not able to put the book down as I wanted to read on to find out the outcome. The paperback has a retail price on the back cover of £6.99 but I only paid £4.49 for my copy in Tesco. I think even the full price is quite reasonable as this is a great book. It was published by Black Swan and is widely available in book shops and online.
I am more than happy to give this book the full 5 stars despite there being a lack of fun and humour. I loved the story and got to know all of the characters with ease. This is definitely a new style for this author and I do look forward to reading more of her work under the name of Madeleine Wickham.
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