Overall, a well written book with a not so traditional storyline. I liked the main characters, and I enjoyed learning more about them as the novel progressed.

I like this author's style and look forward to reading more from her.

This book was a bit unexpected, but it was fun with an interesting twist at the end. I thought the book would be more about dating through this new app that the main character was creating, but instead, it focused on her working through her grief as a young widow after her husband's ashes were returned to her without notice. There was a romantic plot line, but it felt very secondary to the other emotional baggage the main character needed to sort through.

This book started out rough. It was hard to get through the constant pop culture references that were mentioned for the sake of mentioning - not to enhance the story. It was like hanging out with a superficial teenager.

The base of the story was interesting but fairly predictable. A beach read, but I would not recommend it. I would have loved a twist towards the end.

The first chapter is so funny and really draws in the reader however this book starts to nose dive off the deep end the more you read. I was not a fan of Charlotte, it was very hard to like her character. Everything felt forced in this book, like it had to happen it wasn’t a natural thing or a gradual progression.

I really appreciated the tone of this book. Exploring a life without a husband, and what it means to be a widow and finding a new identity and sense of self through loss. I thought the title and cover were incredibly misleading, and ultimately harm the potential of the book. It seems to look like a typical chick lit story, but what we get is actually much more than that. I enjoyed the realistic work aspects of Charlotte's life, and how analytical she is. The romance was cute, a bit forced, but ultimately a nice read!

This book wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but I still really enjoyed it. Charlotte is in pursuit of the perfect partner, but she also has a secret -- she is a widow. While Charlotte has tried to protect herself from suffering that kind of loss again, an unexpected arrival forces her to confront her grief and and reconnect with those she had been pushing away. This is an emotional read that I just couldn't put down.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for my review.

Charlotte Rosen is a widow. It's also her biggest secret. When she gets her late husband's ashes five years after the fact she then must start dealing with her past. I thought the premise sounded really promising. I was excited to see what happened to Charlotte and how she would come full circle from her loss. However, in practice the book was lacking that spark that would set it apart. It was okay. It wasn't a bad book, but it's not my favorite women's fiction of the year.

I could not stop reading this book. I literally had the stop myself from picking it up at work just to finish it. The premise of a girl who lost her husband and then was working on an algorithm to find a man was pretty fun. But that wasn't really what this story was about. Not really. There was a whole lot that ended being a part of it.

I thought this would be semi -predicatable turn out but it turned out to actually have a few surprises. This is probably what kept me wanting to read it.

While I did receive advance copy of this book to review, I would have bought it.

Charlotte was delightful. I thought this story was cute and emotional and my heart went out to her for keeping her widow secret a secret for five years. I enjoyed her inner monologue and was addicted to the story.

I would like to thank the publisher for the opportunity to review!

29 year old Charlotte is known as the Numbers Queen. She spends her day job performing analytics on social media and at night she's working on developing an app to use data analytics to help singles find their perfect match. She's been trying to hide the fact that she's a widow of 5 years ... until her late husband's ashes showed up at her doorstep. As she's trying to figure out what to do with the urn, other secrets are come to light and forces her to answer some tough questions about herself and her future.

I thought this was a cute book that is a light and quick read. The story is compelling and I loved the snarky dialogue!

Thanks @netgalley and @Graydon House for a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Graydon House and Netgalley for a chance to read this title before it is released.

Charlotte, a young widow, has a good job analyzing social media performance and on her own is working on a dating app. She has a roommate that doesn’t know she’s a widow, and a mother-in-law who is a pain in the arse.

One day, Charlotte comes home to find the ashes of her late husband need to be rehomed because there was a fire where they had been. Carrying around his ashes everywhere and not being able to decide on a new place to put them wasn’t enough to sustain the story.

I was an instant fan of Belden’s previous title “Hot Mess” so thought this book would follow suit. It didn’t.

Much too late in the story a twist was introduced to help propel the plot. I hope that Belden keeps on writing and keeps on getting better, but that next time she chooses a focus with a little more depth to it. She’s a good writer, knows how to inject humor and just needs a better vehicle to carry her narrative.

Charlotte is a widow and even her roommate doesn't know about it. Her life is all of the sudden upside down when she receives an urn full of her late husband ashes. All of the sudden you realize that Charlotte doesn't have it all together and is slowly unraveling. I expected this to be rom com but it was so much more. There's a twist I didn't see coming and loved that Charlotte changed her priorities and stopped living in fear.

Charlotte has taken the time to put her life back together after a fateful loss of her husband. She has everything she thinks she needs to move forward and continue to live her life. She is thrown for a curve when she comes home to find her husbands ashes left on her doorstep. She is forced to face her ex mother in law and her husbands best friend. She is discovering things she did not know to even ask about. She is also finding the potential to move forward and find love again.

Love how the writing kept you guessing and didn't give anything away at the same time. Emily Belden is a fabulous writer with great flow to her writing that keeps you guessing.

This was a cute story about a young widow who hasn’t figured out how to move forward. When something unexpected finds itself back in her life she’s forced to reexamine everything, and everyone, she thought she knew.

On a separate note, the book is FILLED with missing words. I know it’s an ARC but whoever proofed this didn’t do a good job.

Charlotte Rosen is a successful computer programmer who has developed a program that she is trying to find a new successful relationship with. After a particularly heinous date, she receives an unexpected package at home:the ashes of her deceased husband. While she tries to handle rehoming his ashes, she must reevaluate her relationships and allow the people in her life to become closer to her. She realizes that some of the barriers to relationships she has created must be destroyed in order for her to find happiness. This was an intriguing read, as well as a quick enjoyable one. There was a well-developed story but it also had humor.

This is a hard book to review for me - it's not that it was bad, at all, and it's not that it was good. It was, in a word, underwhelming. I thought Charlotte's journey through grief was very compelling, and for that reason alone this title could be worth a read. However, I found it incredibly difficult to relate to her and most of the characters. Adding to this, there were a lot of moments that seemed ultra contrived, and it made it hard to stay really immersed in the story that was being told.

Charlotte Rosen is a 29 year-old widow. It's her big secret. Her husband died suddenly, barely a year into their marriage, five years before, and she's focused solely on finding the perfect mate now that she's nearing 30. She's a data analyst at a social media company, and she's developing this app on the side, using herself as a test subject. But when her husband's ashes show up on her doorstep after the mausoleum containing them suffers a catastrophe, Charlotte finds herself uncovering secrets and re-evaluating her life.

Less a romance and more of a contemporary chick-lit novel, Husband Material is a solid story about grief, loss, and becoming unstuck. Charlotte is an interesting character - she's got her moments - who tried to move on from loss by suppressing it. I love that it's a smart woman in tech story - brava to Harlequin for finding more authors exploring this! - and I liked the characters. The subplot felt tacked on to propel the story forward, but I liked the message: sometimes, things don't get resolved, and it can be okay, anyway.

Wonderful read. First you meet Charlotte through her job where the perfect algorithm is everything. And then you see her behind closed doors when the the new hard drive she ordered arrives. Except it isn't a hard drive. And it sets her world on end. It is the ashes of her dead husband. When her role as "wife" ended five years ago. She has worked hard to keep her widowhood a secret, managing her grief like another algorithm. And how has that worked out for her? Well...

The characters are believable, the emotions as messy as real life, and the twists just unbelievable enough to shock...and put the reader in touch with the crazy messed up take two of Charlotte's life.

It’s going to be a review heavy week on readandwright.com! I finished some incredible books and need to share them with you ASAP. Yesterday I shared Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston and today I have Husband Material by Emily Belden.

Wow. Just…wow. I LOVED Husband Material. It was a book that really surprised me. Initially, I was drawn to the book by its cover and title. Being a bride to be, I thought the title suited my current reading mood and content. I read the synopsis and was a little surprised, but still thought it would be about Charlotte, the main character, finding someone who was “Husband Material.”

I was wrong in the best way. This book so much more than chick lit. This book explores loss, identity, trust, adulthood, and moving on in such a delicate and real way. I am so incredibly impressed with it.

Charlotte Rosen’s husband Decker died suddenly at 27, not even one year into their marriage. Charlotte was 25, struggling with the idea that “widow” was a not a title many 25 year olds have. So she packed up and started a life where no one knew about Decker, threw herself into work, and all of a sudden 5 years have passed. Until one day, Decker’s ashes are returned to her and she is forced to confront the grief she pushed away.

Belden handles a extremely delicate story with such precision and honesty. She interviewed widows of all ages to give Charlotte an authentic grief process, which leaps off the page. But the book doesn’t feel all “doom and gloom”, it feels so real. We watch Charlotte try to deal with every emotion thrown her way, including her desire to be someone’s wife again, which cannot be an easy thing to understand.

I cannot imagine ever being in such a position. I shed quite a few tears while reading this book, but I also smiled and laughed, felt like Charlotte’s cheerleader and her annoyed friend. This is going to be a favorite of 2019 as well.

A huge thank you and round of applause to Emily Belden for such an incredible piece of writing and to Random House for the advanced digital copy!

Husband Material is on sale December 30, 2019 (which just so happens to be my birthday, but that’s not why I loved this book so much) but is available for preorder now! Add it to your Christmas lists, TBR’s, all the things! I’ll definitely be talking about it again as the publication date nears.

Charlotte is all about the algorithm. She could probably fix Instagram. She has her life planned like it's one of the programs on her computer. She is in control. Well...that is until her husband's (Decker) ashes show up at her door!! The mausoleum the ashes were at burned down and they sent them to her. And since no one in her life even knew she was a widow, she has some explaining to do.

But that is not the only part of her past that's come back into her life. She also runs into her husband's best friend, Brian. Decker's mother is desperate for the ashes and tries to get Brian to talk to Charlotte about it. That ultimately backfires (Charlotte refuses to give them up), but Brian doesn't just go away. She keeps meeting with him and their budding friendship turns into something more.

Charlotte also has to deal with how she's been using her roommate to stay inside the box she created for herself after her husband died. She's barely dealt with her emotions and she chose her roommate specifically because she knew she wouldn't ask any questions. It also doesn't help that she's been hiding her true self from the people she works with.

This was a really interesting story, especially for a romance. It was about Charlotte's past relationship with Decker, her life after, and how she needed to deal with her past and present. I really enjoyed her character. She had a lot of things to work through and did so in a very real, slightly panicked way which I always appreciate lol.

That being said, Brian...he could be an asshole at times. There's a point where he wants Charlotte to make a decision about where she's going to store the urn. He finds a place that would be available in a couple of months. When she doesn't make the decision in a couple of days, he becomes upset and almost belligerent. And it's never really addressed, even after it turns out he is keeping a HUGE secret from her. His behavior and faults are kind of swept under the rug, while Charlotte's  faults are examined and she ends up addressing them. For the most part he doesn't address his.

I am giving Husband Material by Emily Belden 3.5 out of 5 stars. I really enjoyed Charlotte's growth and how we got to see her past and how it informed what was going on in her life in the present. Brian wasn't the romantic male I wanted, but that's nothing new. lol he's no Mr. Darcy. If you're looking for an emotional but also fun romance, you should give this one a shot.

Husband Material comes out December 30, 2019

Thank you to NetGalley and Graydon House for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.