Somebody's Husband

Somebody's Husband is essentially a story about finding love and an everything partner again after losing your first one. The lives of two adults in their 40s with teen-aged kids are irrecoverably intertwined when they join forces on a new clinical trial project for cancer patients.

Doctor Dresden Xavier is loyal, down to earth and committed to his late wife even after she's gone. But continues on raising their twin girls and living life the best he can when with a broken heart without her. Professor Harper Kingsley is on the fast track to tenure at the HBCU she teaches at and at the height of her career. But struggles with supporting her ex-husband and the father of her sons who's battling cancer. 

The story's strength lies within Dresden's character as readers consistently watch him struggle with his growing attraction and draw towards Harper's character while still carrying the love for his late wife Nina. His character was definitely the most thought out in the book. And having the support of his family and friends when he moved back to his hometown was awesome to see. 

As if living life in parallel directions, Harper and Dresden's lives held a lot of similarities. And as a reader, I could see how they would gravitate towards each other for a number of reasons.  But when it came to the romance in this book, I found some red flags in the main and supporting characters that really had me shaking my head. <spoiler> For example, the level of opinion and say Dresden let his daughters have in his love life. They were both over eighteen I believe, so young adults themselves. But each conversation about who or when he might be dating felt like it was one step away from them asking him about his sex-life and Dresden actually replying!

I do not have a father and I do not have a close relationship with my mother but even so, clear boundaries and established roles, people! Dresden can be a loving father and be close to his daughters without them having a relationship that resembles that of a friendship. 

The next one was the juxtaposition of communication. Harper and Dresden are drawn together and develop a friendship. Their communication and topics of discussion were broad and open. It was clear that Harper seemed to be closer to him than her ex-Terrance almost at the very beginning;so I became pissed when the details about said ex and Dresden's secret agreement. That put his career and any progression into a relationship with Harper in jeopardy. Bottom line, it was a total conflict of interest. 

But what disrupted my focus the most while reading this book was the growing sense that the story was more about building drama around these two finding each other and less about the emotional backbone of the story--the effects of living on after losing someone to cancer. </spoiler>

It got to a point in the book that I felt like the story could've done without the plot point all together. The hyperbolic way in which every other passage boosted Dresden's looks and how Harper was lonely and needed a bed mate was overdone. And while I am a little over a decade younger than both the MCs, every image depicted to describe Dresden brought up images of family members or family friends to mind. So I just could not find anything about him attractive.

I know this is fiction and what's a romance book without DRAMA but cancer has touched the lives of people close to me. So there were parts of this book I could not fully ignore or overlook for the sake of staying immersed in the story.  Therefore, I think the book could have excluded the cancer part entirely or made it less of the main story plot altogether.  

With that being said, Somebody's Husband does a good job of detailing a healing process through life and love after grief and loss.