The Lost Husband

Another great novel by Katherine Center! After reading 3 books by Katherine, I\’ve come to appreciate her writing style. I\’m a fan for life. The heroine of this novel is Libby Moran. She\’s a widow and has two children, Abby and Theo. Her husband, Danny, passed away three years ago in a motor vehicle accident. Her daughter Abby was hurt during the same accident and she still walks with a limp. Libby still feels residual guilt about his passing. They had an argument the morning before the accident. For the last year, Libby has been living with her mother. They don\’t get along and arguments are always present. Then a letter from her aunt arrives. In this letter, her aunt offers her a job at her goat farm and a place to live for her and her children. Libby doesn\’t think about it twice. She immediately packs their few belongings to start a new chapter in her life and the life of her children. At the farms, things are different. She has to wake up early to milk the goats. She\’s dressing in overalls and makeup is a thing of the past. She has to learn to deal with the farm manager, who has a lot of facial hair. Her children are starting a new school and she worries about Abby and her limp. So many changes but at the end of the day, she\’s happy she made this choice. The shaggy manager, James O\’Connor stole my heart. He was so good to Libby\’s children. He was sweet and caring. I love all of their interactions. Thats not a farm manager, I said. Thats Chewbacca. The Lost Husband is quite inspirational. It\’s about family, loss, despair, love, and hope. It\’s also about moving forward and adapting to changes. Cliffhanger: No 4/5 Fangs

I loved this book the way I love chocolate, and I gobbled it up just as fast. Katherine Center has a gift for creating relatable characters, believable dialogue, and interesting storylines. I came to know these people, like them, and care about them. When Libby lost her husband she lost much more. She lost her home. She lost herself. She lost her nerve. She became over protective of herself and her children. She was stuck living a half-life in her mother\’s house. Then one day she received a letter from her crazy Aunt Jean that changed everything.

This story of a new widow who is struggling to raise her two young children as best she can is touching and engrossing. I loved the description of the goat farm and all the farm animals. The quirky characters were believable and very appealing. The struggles and conflicts the characters faced seemed very realistic. This story of life in a small Texas town moved quickly and kept my full attention. I will be looking for more stories by this talented author.

After reading the excellent \”How to Walk Away,\” and \”The Things You Save in a Fire,\” I wanted to read more of Katherine Center\’s books, and landed on \”The Lost Husband.\” Some have remarked that this story is somewhat lightweight, that Center didn\’t go deep enough into certain aspects of character background. However, it\’s 300 pages. Not sure you can cover everything. I really enjoyed it. At the end, I felt moved to tears, not because of the words, which were moving, but because I felt the whole existentialist sense that we\’re on a journey that has to be, in some ways, traveled alone. If we can mature to a point where we both recognize that and aren\’t flattened by it, or even better, can see the silver lining in it, as Libby did, that is the epitome of human achievement, IMHO. So this \”easy breezy beach read,\” is way more than that, if such things interest you. This is the story of Libby trying to adapt to life as an adult human, to accept that we have so little control over what happens to our loved ones. The fact that she moves so easily into life with her Aunt Jean, that her kids get to live a storybook childhood complete with tire swings under a tree, is a relief. There is enough tension and drama in this story to pull you in and keep you hooked. And it\’s a sweet romance, with sexual tension that never gets more graphic than deep kisses. For an author to be able to do that–it\’s an art in itself. I did want to read more about her finding closure with her late husband, how she came to grips with him destroying their finances just before he died. But the resolution of her relationship with her mother, an extreme narcissist, was enough fuel to propel Libby\’s character arc. This was a satisfying, enjoyable book, and I\’m eager to check out Center\’s other works.

The title of the book intrigued me and as I started to read I soon found myself lost in the story. I loved the characters, even those totally unlovable, wanting to see how they coped with their own tragedies stronger for the struggle…. and found myself rooting for the young daughter being bullied … finding it over too soon.

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