The Next Best Thing

I truely enjoyed this book. a slight twist with Lucy, a widow, having an inappropriate "privilages" with her deceased husband brother. The mom and aunts, "the widows" own a bakery. Ethan's parents an Italian restaurant. She finally decided to start dating again. Poor Ethan introduced her to his brother but he's loved her since they met in college. Good story. would enjoy re-reading ( )

Lucy had only been married 8 months when she lost her husband over 5 years ago and she still has not gotten over it, to put it mildly. In fact, in my opinion the girl could use some serious grief counseling. But as the story begins her sister has just had a baby and that starts her thinking and she has convinced herself she is ready to move on - she wants to meet someone and start her own family. Ethan is her dead husband's brother with whom she enjoys "friends with benefits". This news was a bit of a shocker to me even though I had read it in the blurb.

The story is told in a first person narrative and has the usual disadvantage of never knowing what Ethan is thinking or feeling. Lucy is one messed up person who seems to spend too much time playing the video of her wedding and crying. Normally I would be totally irritated with this type of heroine but I found myself very sympathetic towards her. Lucy works in the family-owned bakery with her mother and two aunts (called the Black Widows) who were also widowed at a fairly young age. These women seem to be content in their widowhood and cannot understand why Lucy wants to marry again. Why take the risk since all the men in the family die young. This is why I was so sympathetic of Lucy - working with these three was not a healthy situation. But there was lots of humor and some touching moments in this book which really balanced out the sadness. I cried along with Lucy and laughed too. But sometimes I wanted to shake her in her treatment of Ethan who was a wonderful guy.

The characterizations of the widows and Lucy's sister were well drawn. The sister is deathly afraid her husband will die young too like her mother, sister and aunt's husbands and has become quite neurotic. Just when I was starting to lose patience with Lucy she makes an amazing discovery about Ethan and my heart just melts. I loved the ending. I couldn't make up my mind on the grade for the longest time. But it's still so memorable after a couple months that I had to rate it pretty high. ( )

This was a single session read for me – my fave way to read a romance! – and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Great characters, nice use of tension, jolly good fun. ( )

Another winner for this author, with a poignant story,funny takes on the best and worst life can dish out, and a lovely ending after some quirky detours. ( )