Title: Husband Material

Author: Emily Belden

Publisher: HARLEQUIN – Graydon House Books (U.S. & Canada)

Publish Date: December 30, 2019

Format: ebook

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

*I received a copy of this ebook through NetGalley in return for an honest review*

Short Synopsis:

Charlotte Rosen has kept her widow status a secret as she tried to start a new life, one that doesn’t leave her crippled with grief. The walls she’s built to protect herself comes crumbling down with the arrival of her husband’s urn showing up on her doorstep. As she is trying to process this sudden bomb, as well as turmoil at work, Charlotte is surprised by her husband’s best friend, Brian Jackson, frat boy turned children’s doctor. Charlotte relies on numbers to find her way through life, but this is one problem her algorithm can’t solve.

My Thoughts:

I went into this book with the preconcieved idea that as Charlotte was navigating her grief and dealing with relocating her husband’s ashes Brian was just going to swoop in and suddenly she would be head over heels in love with him and they would live happily-ever-after. Well, I was wrong, and I couldn’t have been more off. Yes, this is still a romance. However, the real magic was the depth of Charlotte and Brian’s characters, especially Charlotte and the turmoil and grief that she went through as she dealt with the ghosts of her past and having to “let go” of her husband all over again. The author brought out this anxiety in me (in a good way) as I was reading this. Though Brian was there through her journey and he was a solid presence, Charlotte was a strong woman and was able to come to the conclusion of her emotions on her own without needing some big strong man to save her. She saved herself.

I would say that the cover for this book does not do a good job of representing the novel. To me, that cover gives off the impression that the girl is very high class and likes to shop and he just carries the bags. I don’t know how to explain it, but I do not that that cover does not go with this book. I read this book in less than 24 hours, and from front to back I was enamoured with this book. At the crescendo I was in literal tears from the amount of emotion that was in this. Simply a beautiful, one-of-a-kind romance that I would most definitely recommend to readers.