Around the Bend / The Other Wife

Around the Bend / The Other Wife
Shirley Jump
457 pages
Publisher: Harlequin
Source: eHarlequin.com
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Around the Bend:  Hilary and her mother Rosemary don't get along at all, but when Rosemary needs to get across the country to California, the two embark on a cross country road trip with Rosemary's pet pit Reginald and a life size cutout of Hilary's father who died a few years earlier.

This book was hilarious!  I laughed the whole way through and I enjoyed the author's ability to keep serious subjects light.  I thought the whole thing was delightfully quirky and what was great about this Harlequin was the romance was not the main focus in the novel at all.  Instead it was about a mother daughter relationship and how they needed to fix it.  I definitely recommend this novel if you want a light, quick something to make you laugh.  I could definitely see this being made into a movie.

The Other Wife:  This was a bonus book included in the volume.  When Penny's husband, Dave, dies suddenly of a heat attack she finds out he had a second wife.  Soon the two of them are on a road trip with Harvey, Dave's performing dog, to find out what other secrets Dave was hiding from them.

Another great story!  I hit the jackpot with this volume.  The Other Wife was just as enjoyable as Around the Bend since, again, it could have been a heavy topic but the author kept it light.  I enjoyed Jump's use of animals in both stories, in particular in this one because of the way Harvey helped Penny heal.