Wedlock
Denis Wright
OneTree House
pub. 2018

02 March, 2021

Wedlock, written by Denis Wright, is a terrific book. In the beginning, Lucy Sorrenson is looking after her Poppa, who has Parkinson’s disease. She also has to supervise her Dad, who has a rock band, and acts like a ‘teenage muso’. She is in the school production of Macbeth as Lady Macbeth, but when she gets called to the stage door on opening night she can’t believe what happens next.

She has been chosen to save the world. She must marry the Master, a reincarnation of the Prophet Isaiah, within three months, and have his child, who will ‘lead the pure to the promised land’, in eighteen months.

Wedlock is probably for older kids, maybe 13 years at least, as it involves swearing, teenage drinking and sexual assault. It is a cautionary tale, however it does have relevant messages for young teenagers.

Wedlock is a standalone book, and not part of a series. When you finish it, you kind of want more and hope he’s going to write another book. He hasn’t. Although Wedlock was only published in 2018, so there’s still hope for a sequel.

Wright has written an amazing book, and has created an engrossing storyline. Lucy shows she is just a normal 15 year old girl, despite people trying to change her. She isn’t happy about puberty and is jealous of her friend, who hasn’t quite gone through puberty yet, although her friend is jealous of her. She has a school enemy, Grace, who is always really rude to her, especially when Lucy gets the role of Lady Macbeth instead of Grace, who was certain she would get it.

Wedlock is set primarily in Wellington, New Zealand, but the characters do travel around a bit. They visit familiar sites that any Kiwi reader would recognise.

The author, Denis Wright, is an English teacher in Wellington. He has written at least two other books, Violence 101 and Nanotech. Violence 101 is about an extremely intelligent 14 year old who tries to help someone and learns the hard way that violence isn’t always the answer.

Nanotech is about high school students who are kidnapped while on a field trip, the kidnappers having a target – American biologist Professor Meinhoff.

I love Wedlock because extreme and blinding belief systems are not something many people write about. Wright describes emotions with a raw sense of reality, and has an intriguing storyline, as I’ve previously mentioned. It was a terrific read, and a real page turner – I could not put it down! I finished it in maybe two days, as I read it so much! I found it a bit unexpected at times, kind of like ‘okay, that just happened…’ I did find it awesome however, and I hope to read his next books.

• Allie Ward is 12 years old and lives in Palmerston North.