The Husbands

The Husbands is not marketed as a “mom book,” but as a mother of young children, I saw so much of my own life on the pages.

The story follows Nora Spangler, an overworked attorney who is pregnant with her second child, as she digs into a wrongful-death lawsuit centered on a fatal house fire. The story teems with drama between the mystery of the fire and the motives for its potential coverup, but my favorite part of the book is how Baker gives voice to the things we as mothers “aren’t supposed” to say.

A woman moves to a new neighborhood where all the wives are high-powered, and their husbands are… suspiciously helpful. How come none of them seem to mind doing all the chores?? And how much will our heroine — whose own husband isn’t pulling his weight — be willing to give up to join her successful neighbors? Baker’s novel is full of Stepford Wives-esque fun.

My neighbor passed this book over the fence to me with a knowing nod and a couple of pages in, I knew why. Our heroine, Nora Spangler, is a strung-out attorney married to a loveable blue-eyed bear of a man who is entirely incapable when it comes to any of the parenting details that keep the show on the road. The story’s basically a whip-smart Stepford Wives rewire but what I love about this novel is that Baker seems to be one of the few writers out there to detail exactly how women are held back by their domestic burdens… show more.