Rating:           9

General Rating:   A cute, easy read about a woman married to a cheater.

Skip factor:   4% I skipped very little in this novel.

Who should read:   Any woman who’s ever been cheated on or had a friend whose husband cheated. Girls who like beach reads or romance—the slow-build, not the jump-in-the-sack kind.

Summary:   The story starts off with Cricket (love that nickname) realizing her husband might be cheating. Cricket owns a quaint, little antique shop and when she confirms her cheating-husband suspicions, she employs her recent hire, Ruby, to help her catch hubby in the act. 

Ruby has a story of her own. Just out of jail, she introduces Cricket to several members of her troubled family, and Cricket’s story peaks and dips with dead ends, a romantic crush, and revenge. Throughout, the reader is sure Ruby is going to totally turn out to be a great person. So you keep reading. Then Griffin walks onto a page and you can’t stop.

Characters:  This author has no trouble connecting her readers with her characters. I liked all within a few paragraphs of their introduction. Except the husband and tennis babe, of course, as intended. I loved Cricket, Ruby, Griff, and even grew to like cousin Ed.

Storyline: The “cheating” storyline has enjoyed the written words of millions of authors over the years, but this didn’t disappoint. Just enough differed about this story to coax you onto the couch and keep you there.

Writing:  The writing is good, the discourse great. Told from two first-person perspectives, Cricket’s and Ruby’s, this Chick Lit novel owns the perfect combination of narrative and dialogue (white space).

Read this author again? Yes, I would. She pulled me in and kept me.

Read on!

_________________________________________________________

CJ Zahner is the author of The Suicide Gene, a psychological thriller, Dream Wide Awake and Project Dream, two crime thrillers with sixth-sense components, Friends Who Move Couches and Don’t Mind Me, I Came with the House, women’s fiction. Her Dream Series novels were inspired by Zahner’s own experiences. See the video of her own paranormal experience, a premonition of 9/11 here. Download her Beyond Reality Radio podcast here. Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, BookBub, or LinkedIn. Purchase her books on Amazon.