"My Husband's Sweethearts" Bridget Asher

“My Husband’s Sweethearts” by Bridget Asher was reviewed in “People” magazine and it piqued my interest. Here’s the plot: Lucy just found out that her husband of four years, Artie, has cheated on her not once, but three times during their short marriage. Unable to deal with this revelation, she leaves on business and spends the next six months moving from hotel to hotel. Although she’s happy to continue on like this indefinitely, avoiding her anger, she receives bad news while she’s gone: Artie is dying. He has a heart infection and he doesn’t have much time. Lucy feels obligated to fly home and be by his side in his final days, despite the recent past, so she ties up some loose ends and heads home.

Once home, Lucy has a revelation. Why should she be dealing with this alone? Artie’s “sweethearts” as she’s begun to think of them, have been there in the good times, so they should also be there for the bad. One drunken night Lucy looks through Artie’s little black book and begins to call the women from his past, one at a time, determined to make him pay for what he’s done to her. To her surprise, some of the sweethearts arrive at her home; some want to care for him in his final days, and some just want to give him a piece of their mind. Soon there’s a parade of sweetheart’s at Lucy’s door, all of whom give her insight into Artie’s past. There’s also the matter of Artie’s son, someone who Lucy didn’t even know about until the past couple of days, but whom Artie wants to have a chance to get to know in his final days.

What follows is a sweet story about a woman dealing with betrayal, who is unable to see the good while the bad still clouds her vision. It’s about women getting revenge; women showing a man how he’s hurt them or how he’s changed them. What I loved most about the book, though, is that it is about family. “My Husband’s Sweethearts” shows the reader that family can come from the most unexpected of places, and in the most unusual forms, but in the end it’s what makes everything worthwhile.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a fresh story from a new author (I couldn’t find information about any previous books, if there are any), with themes that have been done before but were done spectacularly in this case. The characters were lovable, real, and “sweethearts” through and through. Any fan of Marisa de los Santo’s “Love Walked In” or “Belong to Me” will thoroughly enjoy this book.