Susan Crosby, The Merry Widow’s Diary

The Merry Widow's Diary

Susan Crosby

Harlequin Next, September 2006, $5.50

ISBN: 0373881088

Her two daughters are attending college, so suburban widow Jill Townsend feels lonely, especially since her spouse, Wade, a college professor, only recently died. She knows she needs to get a life, but finds it hard, not just because she is mourning. The difficulty lies in the reality that she has been a mother and a wife; but not a Jill in almost two decades.

However, Wade leaves her with an enigmatic key that makes little sense to her, and related information that adds to her confusion, but soon takes Jill from suburbia to Manhattan where she plans to live the good life of a swinging single merry widow. Her husband's best friend, writer Alan Haggerty refuses to allow Jill to totally sever her former life as a college professor's wife. What he fails to tell Jill is his reason is selfish; he has hidden his love for her from the moment Wade introduced her to him.

This is an insightful family drama, as a grieving Jill wants to help her daughters with their anguish, but has issues of her own, as she struggles to start over while still mourning her late spouse and worrying about her children. Readers will feel for Jill, who's on a quest to find a life that she can label Jill, instead of a role like widow and mother without devastating her cherished relationships with her daughters or the memory of Wade. Readers who appreciate a deep character study will appreciate the well written entertaining THE MERRY WIDOW'S DIARY.