Just Breathe

July 21, 2008
Bestselling author Wiggs (Snowfall at Willow Lake
) keeps her romance reputation going with this feel-good story of a wronged woman who gets out on her own and gets going. Sarah Moon, a comic-strip writer, is happily married to Jack Daly—until she comes home to find him entwined and naked with a business associate he had badmouthed to her just hours earlier. After five years of marriage, including months of infertility treatments because of Jack’s cancer, infidelity is the last straw, and Sarah pack ups and leaves Chicago for her hometown of Glenmuir, Calif. Sarah uses her comic strip, Just Breathe, to vent her frustration and relieve her stress. The character, Shirl, is undergoing fertility treatments, getting a divorce and moving back in with her mom. (Comic strips open each section of the novel). And in Glenmuir, lo and behold, Sarah’s dreams come true. She finds out she’s pregnant, and begins a friendship with her high school nemesis, Will Bonner, who’s now the town fire captain and a single dad whose lonely daughter reminds Sarah of herself as a young girl. Wiggs takes serious situations and weaves them into an emotionally wrought story that will have readers reaching for the Kleenex one moment and snickering out loud the next.

Starred review from September 15, 2008
Cartoonist Sarah Moon is shocked and devastated when she stops by her husband's work site after her latest fertility treatment and finds him with another woman. When Jack refuses to acknowledge that he has done anything wrong and says he wants a divorce, Sarah trades his prized custom restored Pontiac GTO for a MINI Cooper and heads for Glenmuir, the small northern California town where she grew up. Somewhat to Sarah's surprise, the area and people she couldn't wait to leave have changedor perhaps she has. Family and friends, including her high school crush Will Bonner, rally round, and Sarah starts to relax. That is until she realizes she's pregnant. This is a lovely, moving novel with an engaging heroine. Best-selling author Wiggs's ("Table for Five") talent is reflected in her thoroughly believable characters as well as the way she recognizes the importance of family by blood or other ties. Readers who like Nora Roberts and Susan Elizabeth Phillips will enjoy Wiggs's latest. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [The finished book will include cartoons not reproduced in the advanced reading copy.Ed.]Elizabeth Mellett, P.L. of Brookline, MA

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