Title: The Blasphemy Box

Author: Mandy Behbehani

Release date: April 23, 2013

Genre: Contemporary women’s fiction with romantic elements

Age Group:  Adult

Publisher: Breedon Avenue Books

Synopsis:

Bridget Jones meets Nora Ephron.

Maddy Nelson has an idyllic existence: a handsome husband, great kids, a comfortable, affluent lifestyle. One morning soon after she turns fifty, however, she wakes up in her San Francisco home to find her husband Steven announcing that he’s leaving her for a woman half her age. And a third of her size.

Ouch!

Feeling totally unmoored and grieving for her married life and husband, Maddy finds herself thrust into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable world of middle-aged singledom. There, she must come to terms with her situation and embark on her new life: divorce proceedings, single parenting, internet dating, and trying to earn a living. It’s enough to drive her over the brink. To help her cope, she shares her struggles in a smart, wry blog named The Blasphemy Box, after her ex-husband’s obnoxious habit of having her drop a quarter into a wooden box every time she said something off color. Her madcap middle-aged adventures find her devoted readers who identify with her challenges.

In time, Maddy creates herself and finds happiness in the arms of a good man, and a fulfilling new career as a novelist.

Review:

When I first started reading this book, I thought “boy I hope Maddy is not going to be one of those whiny women that does nothing but complain and doesn’t try to get herself out of the mess she is in”.  I am happy to say she is NOT a whiny woman!  Granted, she has been thrown for a loop at age 50 – her husband decides that after 20 years of marriage she isn’t good enough and leaves her for a much younger woman and she is left trying to pick up the pieces with their three kids and no career in sight.  Sure she used to be a journalist but gave that up to be a stay at home mom.  At the urging of a friend, she created a blog to talk about the situation and managed to garner a flock of followers of other women that had been in the same situation.

I liked that Maddy’s character seemed real, that she felt what many women probably have felt in the same situation.  She didn’t sugarcoat anything and she didn’t take any flack from the soon to be ex.  I liked that while she isn’t happy with Steven or the situation, she doesn’t bad mouth him to the kids.  She does learn to pick up the pieces and even tries her hand at dating….and I feel her pain in that dating scenario!  I’ve had blind dates that were just about as bad as hers!

We give this book 4 paws and you can get the eBook at Amazon right now for $4.99, not a bad price!

About the author:

Mandy Behbehani grew up in England and now lives in Northern California. She is a professional journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of publications from the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle to W magazine, Town & County magazine and Travel & Leisure magazine.