Disclosure: I received this book as part of a book tour. Opinions shared are mine.

Life is never dull with sisters! Even though my own sisters came to me through marriage only, I can attest to the fact that there’s always some fun, and often drama, when all that estrogen ravages in one room.  For the Hamilton sisters, the drama was rightly won.  Two of the sisters (Faith and Claire) share the grief of losing their husbands in the same crash.  While their middle sister, Ellen, was highly annoying, her attitude provided a good foil for the incessant cheerfulness of Faith, and the scrappy Claire.

The best parts of How to Woo a Widow were the flashbacks.  Each sister took time within their own memories, and we get to see a little bit of the love that died with their husbands.  This helped me to understand their grief better, and to be a little more patient with the way they reacted to situations.  Although their elderly family friend, Ollie, was meant to provide a bit of comic relief, I found her to be crass and unbecoming for an older woman.  However, Ollie probably wouldn’t have cared what I thought!   Claire was another character who had me ranting sometimes, but I really liked her in the end.  After reading the author’s bio, I realized how much of herself that Barbara Allen shared in this story.

The book I received may  have been an ARC copy, because the text was entirely left justified. This made it difficult to distinguish between paragraphs and dialogue. Hopefully the final copy will be different.  I liked the larger font, which was gentle on my aging eyes! If you’re a reader who is sensitive to a little bit of profanity and mentions of adult stuff, this is probably not the story for you.

How to Woo a Widow is a quick read that my own sister (in law) will surely enjoy as much as I did.  I give it a solid 4 stars.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Normal” is for other people. The more Barbara Allen fought to be normal, the harder life laughed at her. And just when she thought she’d got the lastheadshot laugh, life turned against her in a tragedy that almost destroyed her.

Barbara was just 32 years old in 2005,  when her world fell apart. Her husband had been murdered in Iraq at the hands of a fellow soldier. Barbara was left to raise four young boys – just 6,5,3,and 1 year old at the time their father was killed. She wanted to give up. She very nearly did. And yet, in the midst of the darkest moments, she always found some reason to take one more breath. Face one more day. Slowly, she found the strength to piece herself back together as she flew to Kuwait for  one military court proceeding, and then spent years traveling thousands of miles to all the rest. She learned to navigate the military’s criminal justice system. She earned a Masters degree and wrote a book about her ordeal and the grave miscarriage of justice in this case. She learned how it could all have been prevented, and she began advocating for change so it would never happen again. Today, Barbara is deeply entrenched in veterans advocacy and her own steadfast pursuit of justice for her husband. She works as a Veterans Specialist and continues her fight to secure the Purple Heart for her husband.  She has experienced impressive emotional face-plants and vast arrays of  challenges- some self-inflicted, others randomly encountered. And she has acquired the skills to not just overcome it all, but to enjoy the ride.

Barbara may have learned how to turn her adversity into an advantage in life, but this lesson did not come easily. And this upper hand must be diligently maintained.  Now, Barbara brings her life lessons to her audiences in keynote speeches and custom programs. She relates to her audiences’ lives and challenges, and teaches them how to become gladiators in their own life’s arena.

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