Review: Widow Woman by Julia Tagliere

Widow Woman by Julia Tagliere

Pages: 178

Format: ebook 

Buy the Book: Amazon  

Goodreads:  1962 helped kick off a decade of tremendous change. President Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba. Jackie Robinson became the first African American elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Beatles recorded their first song together, and Illinois became the first U.S. state to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults. 

For Audrey Randolph, a young Midwestern wife and the main character in Widow Woman, by Minnesota author Julia Tagliere, 1962 also brought personal tragedy: her mother died suddenly, leaving behind a lifetime of letters, photos and unimaginable secrets. Audrey, stunned by her mother’s death and the subsequent revelations of past loves and lovers, can no longer trust the reality she has always known. She must come to terms with dual losses, both her mother's death, as well as the unanswered, nagging question: Was anything she knew real?


Kritters Thoughts:  A young woman who is having troubles in her own marriage must return home to bury her mother after her sudden death.  As she is going through her mother's things she unravels secrets that were kept from her her entire life. 

Although I can't ruin the book by divulging the big secret, I do feel like I had to remind myself of the time of this book because this secret may not have been as huge of a deal now as it was in the 1960s.  I couldn't imagine my parents keeping this large of a secret from me my entire life and having my mother pass away without the news being shared.  I think a part of Audrey's anger was not hearing it straight from her mother and I completely agreed with her feelings.

I definitely came away with this book with a wonder of what I do not know about my parents.  What have they kept from me for my safety and what have they kept from me "for my own good."  In the same respect, what deep secrets do we keep even from those closest to us - our immediately family.  Although the premise was great, I didn't love the book due to the extreme repetition of the character's thoughts and I wish that there was a little more content and interaction between some of the characters.

Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Ebook 2013 Challenge: 26 out of 50

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Orangeberry Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.