Second Wives

I recommend this book. The character development was great, with just enough eccentricities to make them interesting, but with enough history to make them believable. The way they each deal with their frustrations mirrors real life. I keep looking for more books by Cindy Blake, or other books like this one. It was memorable.

I read this book while on vacation in Florida over Xmas and enjoyed it a lot. These four New England sisters and their trials and tribulations over their parents, husbands and boyfriends zipped right along while engrossing me. The problems of the sisters who are also second wives are very realistically depicted as well. Two of them are second wives and a third will become one when her intended man's divorce comes through. The unmarried sister who is a shrink can be alternately witty and annoying. By the end of the book, she was grating on my nerves. The book also goes a bit over the top towards the end with one of the first wives becoming unhinged. Most of these love relationships/marriages do work out by the end though and, all in all, it is a very good reading experience.

I gave this book 4 stars because it started out slowly. Towards the middle, though, it really picked up and the ending was unexpected and thrilling.

When their brother died as a toddler, the four Preston sisters lost their mother too, though she did not actually die for a few more years. Meg, Beth, Amy, and Leonora found their father remote and not there when they need adult help. Instead, the four siblings learn to depend on one another.Years later, they all reside in Boston. Meg and Amy struggle with their respective spouses' first wives and children. Now Leonora plans to become a second wife, but her beloved's first spouse plans to get him back at any cost. Beth thinks Leonora is behaving like a lunatic for following the melancholy paths of Meg and Amy. However, she joins her siblings in support of their youngest sister. Then again, she still hero worships a much older person, one who rescued the foursome as children when their mother simply drifted away from them.SECOND WIVES is a warm, intelligent look at the problems of relationships. The poignant yet jocular story line moves very quickly to its climax. However, this tale is clearly a character study and each of the four women seems genuine and their motives feel right. Cindy Blake shows much talent to take a topic that usually bogs down with too much false emotion and turns it into a one sitting relationship drama.Harriet Klausner