Ten Things My Husband Hated

by Pauline Wiles

Maggie Moone is happily divorced.

And with her talent for fixing things, she’s perfectly content with her mundane life in the sleepy English village of Saffron Sweeting. That is, until one humiliating March evening when she learns everyone else assumes she’d love to mend her broken marriage.

Determined to prove them wrong, Maggie and her friends concoct a list of ten ways to assert her independence and live large. But her mission to move on leads to unexpected encounters, and Maggie soon finds herself mixing business with pleasure. Is the attractive young Irishman just another item on her list, or is he something more?

Before long, unresolved issues from her past begin to clash, and Maggie is forced to wonder if antagonizing her ex-husband was such a stellar idea.

No sooner does she begin to understand what’s important to her, than she stands to lose everything that truly matters.

This is the fourth in the collection of Saffron Sweeting romantic comedies, which can be read in any order. If you like gentle British humor and deliciously resilient heroines, you’ll love Ten Things My Husband Hated.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Not only had I jumped the queue, I’d snapped at an old-age pensioner, and accused everyone of needing pills to help them poop.

 

It felt strange to hear my maiden name after so long. I probably hadn’t heard it since my wedding day, way back when Pluto was a planet.

 

‘I know you have a knack for it, but surely you’re not liking these odds and sods?’ She made it sound as though I was embalming corpses at the morgue, or cleaning public toilets.

 

Nobody in Saffron Sweeting knew Mrs Worthing’s first name. Everywhere you went, people accorded her the respect she demanded. She walked around in all weathers with a headscarf firmly tied, and her chin half an inch higher than it should be. The corners of her mouth, on the other hand, never lifted at all.

 

He shrugged, then wrote something on the clipboard. No doubt a secret acronym for patient is deranged.

 

I looked down, and recoiled in horror… I was an unmitigated dog’s dinner. My clothes were drenched in sweat, my hair was a hedgehog’s nest, my face was smeared with goodness knows what, and I’d wiped my nose on my shirt.

 

My Review:

 

This was my second time reading the crafty Ms. Wiles amusing words, and I believe she has become a bit habit-forming, as perusing her clever tales is something I would enjoy incorporating into my diet for a tasty treat.   Written from the first-person POV of Maggie, a rather wimpy and mousy jam loving divorcee who must have been a medical marvel as she appeared to be missing any trace of a backbone. I enjoyed the humorous storylines but wanted to provide Maggie with several brisk yanks as a form of medical intervention to dislodge her cranium from her backside. However, her friends hoped to refocus her energy and give her a kick-start toward self-independence by making a list of activities to be viewed as rebellious acts against her rather smug and self-serving ex-husband. There were a few mixed results and comical escapades along the way with a small village full of quirky yet oddly captivating residents.

I gleaned two new and fun additions to my Brit Words and Phrases list with: odds and sods – different kinds of things that are usually small and unimportant; and much of a muchness – two things that are very similar.   The UK saying of “odds and sods” seems much of a muchness to the use of “odds and ends” in the USA, although I’m finding odds and sods to be far more fun to say aloud.