Husband and Wife - Book Review (Giveaway Closed)

Sarah Price is thirty-five years old. She doesn't feel as though she's getting older, but there are some noticeable changes: a hangover after two beers, the stray gray hair, and, most of all, she's called “Mom” by two small children. Always responsible, Sarah traded her MFA for a steady job, which allows her husband, Nathan, to write fiction. But Sarah is happy and she believes Nathan is too, until a truth is revealed: Nathan's upcoming novel, Infidelity, is based in fact.


Betrayed by her husband and facing the decision of what to do next, Sarah examines her heart, recalls her dreams, and turns to her old friends. Author Leah Stewart takes us through Sarah's thoughts and actions as she struggles with the revelation of her husband's affair and decisions about her future.

Although (thankfully) I haven't been through what Sarah has, I found the story to be realistic, and I could relate to the kind of turmoil that she was experiencing.  I confess that, by the time I was about three-quarters of the way through the book, I peeked at the ending to see how the story turned out.  The story is sprinkled with profanity, which I could have done without; it's part of the character's identity, but may make some readers uncomfortable.

As a mom, I appreciated the author's answer to the question of where she gets her ideas:

When I started Husband and Wife my daughter was three and my son was seven months old.  What was on my mind was motherhood, and how it affects your self, your marriage, and your work.  But as my grandmother once told me, motherhood is all-consuming, and yet there's very little to say about the daily act of mothering:  the diapers, the bedtime books, the lost mittens, the mac & cheese.  So how to make the subject interesting?  I needed a crisis in my characters' lives to throw the way they lived into sharp relief, and the crisis I chose was infidelity.  Nothing causes you to examine a bond like a betrayal of it.

Learn more about Husband and Wife at the HarperCollins product page, and find out if Leah Stewart will be in your area on her book tour.  Also, next week Leah will be guest-posting here, and I hope you'll come back to read what she has to say.  Scroll down for giveaway details.



Disclosure: I received a copy of this book, at no cost to me, from HarperCollins Publishers for review purposes. I have received no other compensation for this post, and all opinions are my own.  The Amazon purchasing link that immediately precedes this disclosure is an affiliate link.

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Thanks to HarperCollins Publishers, two lucky readers will win a copy of Husband and Wife!

This giveaway is closed.

Want to win?  Here's how to enter: Visit the HarperCollins website, then come back and comment to tell me which Upcoming Book most appeals to you.  Be sure to leave a way for me to contact you. Limit 1 entry by this method. This must be done in order to qualify for extra entries.

Here's how you can earn additional entries (please leave one comment per entry):

• Check out the New Releases at HarperCollins and comment here to let me know which title you like or would like to read. (1 entry)
• Sign up for the HarperCollins hot @ harper email list. (2 entries)
• Follow HarperCollins on Twitter.  Leave a comment here with your Twitter ID. (1 entry)
• Follow author Leah Stewart on Twitter.  Leave a comment here with your Twitter ID. (1 entry)
• Subscribe to my feed in a feed reader, by GFC, or by email. If you already subscribe, leave a comment to let me know. (2 entries for each way you subscribe)
• Tweet about this giveaway ( RT @FC_Melissa Enter to win a copy of Husband and Wife by @leahcstewart from @HarperCollins http://bit.ly/a0ePwx ). (1 entry per day)
• Comment on a non-giveaway post on my blog. (1 entry per post, limit 5 total)
• [Come back next week to] Read Leah Stewart's guest post, and comment on that message. (3 entries)
• Enter this giveaway in another blog's current giveaway linky list. Leave a comment here with a link to the post. (3 entries - mention Entry #1, Entry #2, Entry #3)
• Blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post. Leave a comment with a link to your blog post. (3 entries - mention Entry #1, Entry #2, Entry #3)

More details: Open to residents of USA and Canada, age 18 or older. No P.O. Box addresses. Giveaway ends 5/19/10 at noon (Eastern time). Winners will be chosen by the random number generator at Random.org. Each winner will be contacted by email and must claim the prize within 48 hours, or another winner will be chosen. Void where prohibited.