To Keep a Husband: An Ex-Wives Novel

by: Lindsay Graves

Published by: Ballantine

Reviewed by Barbara Broom

The first novel in the Ex-Wives series is To Catch A Husband. Four ex-wives competed with each other for the affections (and wedding ring) of a local billionaire.

In To Keep A Husband, the ex-wives, Lally, Caitlin, Jessica and Janey, return for more experiences in their drive to "latch on" to a man that can keep them forever in the style they are accustomed to living.

Lally is back from her around-the-world honeymoon and up to her neck in her husband's philanthropy. Jessica has begun a relationship with Lally's ex-husband (number one), Janey has spent some big money "nipping and tucking" and Caitlin might have found Mr. Right (the new architect in town).

Caitlin doesn't really fit in with the wealthy Lally, Jessica and Janey. She didn't fare well in her divorce and struggles to make ends meet. But she's willing to live above her means if it will "snag" her a well-to-do husband. After all, she deserves a good life and so does her son, Aiden. Caitlin's problem is Aiden. He's developed a curious and sudden mystery life on the Internet, yearns for his missing father and is concerned about the new man in mom's life.

The ex-wives spend their days striving to be the "it" girls of the wealthy community they live in. They are desperate, catty, shallow, mean-spirited (with the tiniest bit of humanity shining through from time to time) and will stab anyone in the back if it allows them to gain sturdier ground in their circle. The men are not better and the ex-wives willingness to consider these "bores" as possible marriage material screams of the earlier-mentioned desperation.

Graves is a good storyteller and her novel is fun in a sort of "it's a train wreck and I shouldn't watch, but I just have to" sort of way. But it's also sad--and after finishing it, I rejoiced that I didn't live the ex-wives lives.

Armchair Interviews says: It's not meant to be a serious novel and if you take it as fun, light reading, you'll enjoy.