If You Only Knew by Kristan Higgins

Letting go of her ex-husband is harder than wedding-dress designer Jenny Tate expected...especially since his new wife wants to be Jenny's new best friend. Sensing this isn't exactly helping her achieve closure, Jenny trades the Manhattan skyline for her hometown up the Hudson, where she'll start her own business and bask in her sister Rachel's picture-perfect family life...and maybe even find a little romance of her own with Leo, her downstairs neighbor, a guy who's utterly irresistible and annoyingly distant at the same time. Rachel's idyllic marriage, however, is imploding after she discovers her husband sexting with a colleague. She always thought she'd walk away in this situation, but her triplet daughters have her reconsidering her stance on adultery, much to Jenny's surprise. Rachel points to their parents' perfect marriage as a shining example of patience and forgiveness; but to protect her sister, Jenny may have to tarnish that memory-and their relationship--and reveal a family secret she's been keeping since childhood. Both Rachel and Jenny will have to come to terms with the past and the present and find a way to get what they want most of all.

Enjoyable

I enjoyed it and became involved with the characters. It was a fun read and made me smile. I am pretty I read it once before so this is my second time reading it

Higgins is a skilled author but this is where we part ways for good. She's funny, she can write heartbreaking and joyous emotional scenes, and her characters come alive on the page. But I'm tired of her “I must find a man NOW before my biological clock explodes” heroines. Jenny, the main narrator in her so-called Women's Fiction debut (as opposed to her straight Contemporary romances), is so desperate to find a man and pop out babies that she fantasizes about every man she meets, even a stranger in the park. At one point when she sees the ongoing object of her affection, her ovaries literally twitch. And despite this love interest clearly telling her he is “for recreational use only,” she is convinced that all he needs is the love of the right woman to save him and they'll live happily ever after.

I realize that by the end of the novel Jenny has lost many of her illusions and taken some steps to regain what's left of her pride, but by then I was too annoyed to care. Higgins' female characters just aren't my cup of tea. I'd rather read romances by authors such as Julie James, Emma Barry, Ainslie Paton and La Nora, in which the heroines are just fine on their own, with lives that are enhanced by meeting the hero instead of saved.