Shelter Me - Juliette Fay

I may go out on a limb and name this to be my favorite non-fiction book so far this year.

I won’t lie, there are a bunch of slow parts and a bunch of schmaltz, but I like schmaltz.

A young mother of two small children loses her husband in a freak accident. We watch her as she perseveres as a widow and a single mom.

There is family angst and trials and tribulations. There is even a romantic interlude or 2 and even though there may be some impropriaties involved, you (at least I did) find yourself cheering them on.

This is a definite recommendation.

As a matter of full disclosure, this book was provided to me by the publishing company on behalf of Mombloggers club.

The Spare Wife - Alex Witchel

First off, I highly recommend this book. But I do have to say that the whole time I was reading it, I couldn't help but keep thinking my mom would not have liked it and probably would not have gotten past the first half.


The storyline is good, a woman, a friend for all, not just the other wives but the husbands as well (for one in particular).

But the reason mom wouldn't have finished is that it was very hard to keep the cast of characters straight. There were many times that I couldn't figure out who was who and thought to go back to the beginning to check, but decided to just give up and enjoy the ride. Once I let myself go, and stop worrying about who was married to whom and who was schtupping whom, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.


Perhaps the fact that the characters all flowed well, perhaps because they worked so well together, that may be why I confused them. The story kept me up at night to read (I hate/love that). You cared about all of the characters, even the bad girl. You cared about the jerk cheating on his wife and then turning his back on the other woman. You cared mostly about the heroine who is the every woman, she is you and me and ever woman you have met.

Disclosure, this book was provided to me by the author and I am being compensated for my honest review.