The New Husband has good tension, interesting characters, and a gritty storyline. The pacing is pretty steady overall with no serious lags along the way. Yet, it doesn't quite cross over from okay to really good. It does have a psychological element, and there are some decent twists. The problem is those twists are entirely too predictable. Don't get me wrong, the bad guy is sufficiently bad and creepy, and Nina is likable and easy to root for. That said, there isn't a single thing in this story that I haven't seen before. Whether it be in book form or in a movie or television show, this has been done and done again. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if there were something to set this one apart from the crowd, but there isn't. The book showed promise, and I kept reading, hoping to find something that I didn't see coming or that I hadn't seen before, but it just didn't happen. So, in the end, it's not a bad story, but it isn't a great one either. 

Please note that I received this via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

This was just okay. I think once we get the reveal about what was really going on the book lost any interest to me. I think if Palmer had cut out one of the POVs so that we (readers) could be shocked about what was going on, it could have worked better. I also have to call BS for some of the explanations we get in the end. The big had some small plot holes that I just rolled with. I would be interested in reading Palmer again in the future. 

"The New Husband" follows, well not the new husband, but the new boyfriend of Nina Garrity. About 17 months ago, Nina's husband Glen disappeared. It takes a long time to find this out, but it seems that Nina's husband was having an affair, wasn't working for several years, and then poofed into the wind. Nina assumes he left her for the other woman and is now trying to repair her life with her two kids, Connor, and Maggie. Nina is now living with her boyfriend, Simon, who is a high school teacher and the community is side-eyeing Nina a bit for moving on so quickly after Glen disappeared. Nina is trying to get a new job though and get more settled with Simon. Too bad her daughter Maggie hates him and now Nina is getting weird warnings about Simon. 

The POVs in this book jump to Nina, her daughter, and another character (no spoilers). I have to say at first I was annoyed with Maggie cause she was acting bratty, but you feel for her when you realize what she is going through at school and how much she misses her dad. I wish that Palmer had included the character of Conner as a POV. I think if we had just stayed with Nina things would have been better honestly. She had a lot to deal with. Having us get Nina in therapy, and then Nina alone was weird. And then we get Maggie's POV's too. I started getting a bit jumbled after a while. 

The ending felt a bit rushed to me. We follow up with everyone 3 years later and I maybe just rolled my eyes at the too pat ending. I wish that Palmer had gone darker a bit with this book or had not revealed so much up front which took out some of my enjoyment of this book. 

Husband Material is kind of a cross between RomCom and women's fiction, and I'm not sure it quite knew which it wanted to be. Dealing with the death of her husband, even five years after the fact, is emotional and heartbreaking, but it doesn't always come across that way. A lot of the book leans toward what I would call quirky and amusing, and there is certainly nothing amusing about grief at the loss of a spouse. The book is well written, and the characters are interesting, but I still struggled to get invested in the story, and I think it goes back to the serious subject matter with such an upbeat tone. I did start to come around about halfway through, and in the end, the story is worth the read, but be prepared for a slightly different take on what would normally be a very emotional read. 

This came to my attention from some feed or other, recced as an entertaining romance, and it hit right the spot. Since I'm a picky bitch when it comes to my romantic reads, to say this was a nice and serviceable way to kill a reading slump, and a fairly enjoyable one at that, is no small praise. I might not be claiming it as perfect or touting it's brilliance to all and sunder (because I'm a bitch), but I will certainly read more of the author.