Sarah Stagg is a happily married, forty-something housewife and free-lance artist, with a fabulous family and dream home and plenty to look forward to. Or so she thought. Her husband of many years, Andrew, drops the bomb just before their now-grown sons leave for a six-month trip in India. He’s fallen in love – with someone else. That someone is Hyacinth, his decades-younger leading lady in the The Ambercross Players, their local theatre, of which he has been a member for fifteen years. He’s leaving her. Not only that, he’s not sure he ever really loved her to begin with.

So, here she is. A separated housewife with few job prospects and fewer offers for companionship. In denial over her circumstances, she believes Andrew is simply in the midst of a midlife crisis. He’ll come back in a few days. Days turn to weeks, weeks to months. He only contacts her to discuss divorce and the splitting up of their assets between them – including the sale of the cottage Sarah has spent her entire marriage turning from the filthy, uninhabitable dwelling it was when they first saw it, into the dream home it is now. Well, that and to check up on her mental state occasionally.

It takes Sarah quite a while, but she begins to adjust to life in the single lane again. To take her mind off her current state of affairs, she allows herself to get pressured into joining The Ambercross Players. Temporarily, at any rate. Her soon-to-be-Ex and his leading lady have left them in a bit of a bind, having taken a sabbatical until talk dies down. In the process of joining, she gains a second-best friend, learns new things about herself and regains a small amount of the self-esteem that completely left her when Andrew deserted her. With her sons’ terrorizing gift and getting together with an old crush, she has no time to dwell on the more negative aspects of her life as it now stands. No, now she seems to once again have something to look forward to. But nothing ever goes according to plan. The question is, just how far off track will Sarah’s plan derail?

The Ex-Wife’s Survival Guide by Debby Holt is for anyone who loves a good tale interlaced with humor and hope. Sarah is a woman who thought she had everything – until her ‘beloved’ husband snatched away the life she knew and loved, leaving her alone and downtrodden. Sarah needs to find her way to a new life, one that suits her, one where she is never again dependant on another, especially a man, for her sense of self. In some ways, her husband’s leaving her was potentially the best thing to ever happen to her. It forced her to look at her life, to evaluate herself, to see herself not as an extension of her husband, but as a great person in her own right. Her journey is one I was most happy to follow, and may well be one that you, the reader, can identify with. Either you’ve been through a divorce yourself, know someone who has, or can empathize with those who find themselves in this sad situation everyday. Either way, you’re sure to enjoy The Ex-Wife’s Survival Guide, and it’s various plot twists.

Reviewed by: Elizabeth