Book Review: "A Matter of Wife and Death" by Ginger Kolbba and Christy Scannell

These women need a V8!

The feisty foursome of pastors' wives are back! This time the gals are battling new adventures in their lives of serving God and their church. Felicia has to adapt from being a career woman to a stay at home mom. Jennifer continues her quest to become a mother with surprising results. Lisa is battling with a rebellious teenage daughter. And Mimi is struggling with a colicky baby and an attraction to her kids' principal? On top of all that, mega PW Kitty Katt is still trying to outshine her fellow PWs and still getting on everyone's nerves. Will a PW retreat finally manage to bring all the women together?

I enjoyed this book A LOT better than the first book in the series. I felt that the characters were developed more and they weren't just a cleaner Christian imitation of the ladies from Sex and the City. There was a lot more communication between the husbands and the wives, something that I had felt was severely lacking in the first book. Sometimes it still feels like there's too much going on with 5 story lines happening at the same time. I think it would have been better just to focus on two of the women with the background story involving everyone.

I really liked Lisa's story with her daughter. I think it also rings true about how a pastor just can't quit his job when he's fed up or things start going wrong. He has to think about the whole church before he makes any decision. It's also sad about how tough it is for pastor's kids to see their parents' lives dictated by the people in the church. Mimi's story this time was a hoot! I was really glad to read about a mom who's not afraid to admit she's sick of her baby crying all the time. The scene where she's pulled over by the copy for falling asleep was hilarious. And then her relationship with the principal....wow I didn't think I'd read something like that with a preacher's wife! The only thing that got me was how calm Mark was when she told him about it. It just seemed rather fake for him to be not bothered by it. And I really don't want to spoil anything about this book but wow there's a storyline in here that I totally did NOT see coming! I thought it was an excellent way to distract the reader to not even guess what was going to happen next.

If you enjoyed reading the first book, you'll like this too. Even if you didn't, I would still recommend picking this one up. It's a whole lot more fun and lot less desperate!

A Matter of Wife and Death by Ginger Kolbaba and Christy Scannell is published by Howard Books (2008)