The Husband Diet

by Nancy Barone

[Leah]

When I was approached by Oliver at Bookoutre, about Nancy Barone’s debut novel The Husband Diet, I took one look at the cover (it’s beautiful), one quick peek of the synopsis and I was sold. I started it immediately, as by a very nice quirk of fate, I’d just finished my latest Kindle read and was on the lookout for the next and The Husband Diet was it. The Husband Diet was a spunky debut, and I loved Erica Cantelli. Everyone needs an Erica Cantelli in their life, and they DEFINITELY need a Julian Foxham in their life. Where can I get a piece of that?

When Erica Cantelli’s husband, Ira, tells her she needs to lose weight, stat, she decides that actually no she doesn’t. She needs to lose him, something she only realises when sitting on a hospital bed awaiting gastric band surgery, but she realises you can never come to that realisation too late and decides she’s happy with her weight as it is, and if she’s going to lose weight, she’ll do it her way and not her husband’s way. As she tries to pull her life back together after so many years with Ira, she finds herself alarmingly attracted to her kids’ principal, the enigmatic Julian Foxham, who is a human Superman. But is Julian the real deal and if he is, what’s he doing with a girl like her?

I thoroughly enjoyed The Husband Diet, it was perhaps a bit repetitive at times as Erica dilly-dallies with telling Julian about her dream to move to Tuscany, something that I felt she should have just come out with immediately, especially as Julian says on a pagely-basis that he’s quite serious about Erica, something she struggles to believe, which I felt was a shame as Erica was an amazing character. I loved her confidence at work, I loved how she managed to balance her kids and her job and being a single mum, something you find mothers complaining about in some Chick Lit novels, but Erica did it with little complaint. I enjoyed the Italian heritage, reading about all of Erica’s Zia’s, and her dream of moving to Tuscany, which by the way, quite possibly lends itself to a possible sequel, set in Tuscany which would be amazing!

I really enjoyed The Husband Diet, it has a very beautiful cover, one of my favourite Chick Lit covers I’ve seen for a while, actually. It was very well written for a debut novel, and I’d definitely be interested in reading more novels from Nancy Barone, she’s really good at telling a story and I very much enjoyed Erica and her fiery Italian style. It made me snort with laughter numerous times, but it also had a more serious edge, especially as we see Erica’s husband Ira unravelling a little bit, as both come to terms with their separation. It pretty much had everything you’d expect from a novel and it was a jolly good read. The Husband Diet is very much worth picking up, it’s a very enjoyable debut novel.