Review: The Military Wife by Lauren Trentham

The Military Wife

by Lauren Trentham

Publisher: St Martin's Press

Pages: 352

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Harper Lee Wilcox has been marking time in her hometown of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina since her husband, Noah Wilcox’s death, nearly five years earlier. With her son Ben turning five and living at home with her mother, Harper fights a growing restlessness, worried that moving on means leaving the memory of her husband behind.

Her best friend, Allison Teague, is dealing with struggles of her own. Her husband, a former SEAL that served with Noah, was injured while deployed and has come home physically healed but fighting PTSD. With three children under foot and unable to help her husband, Allison is at her wit’s end.

In an effort to reenergize her own life, Harper sees an opportunity to help not only Allison but a network of other military wives eager to support her idea of starting a string of coffee houses close to military bases around the country.

In her pursuit of her dream, Harper crosses paths with Bennett Caldwell, Noah’s best friend and SEAL brother. A man who has a promise to keep, entangling their lives in ways neither of them can foresee. As her business grows so does an unexpected relationship with Bennett. Can Harper let go of her grief and build a future with Bennett even as the man they both loved haunts their pasts?

Kritters Thoughts:  A book that intrigued me from the minute I was pitched it to review.  I am a wife of a police officer and I always wonder how close and far apart the life of a wife of a military personnel was compared to a police officer.  I am not sure that I have had my eyes open and looking, but I was unaware of any other book that solely looks at life through the lens of a military wife.  

The main narrator is Harper Lee Wilcox and her husband died serving in Afghanistan and she is still trying to put her life in order after his death.  The story has two time lines, the current moment where she is doing the single mom life and then the past where it tells of the story of her meeting her future husband and their relationship.  I liked getting that viewpoint of the past coming to meet the present.

The thing that I loved most about this book was the honesty.  This book gave a few viewpoints of different military wives with husbands with different reactions to the war and the honesty of each of these women just felt so real and raw.  I loved getting to know each of them and it felt as though I could be friends in the trenches with these ladies.  

I loved this book and would love to read more books like this that expand my worldview and giving me a honest perspective of a life of another person.


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Ebook 2019 Challenge: 6 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from St Martin's Press.  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.