What would you actually do if you hit forty, caught your husband cheating for the millionth time, and then nearly died in a car crash? Because Clare Wilson does all of that in the first few hours of this audiobook, and honestly? I was hooked from my driveway.
Three Sisters, Three Messes, One Very Full Plate
I started this one on a Wednesday during Sophie's nap - which she fought for twenty minutes, so I was already emotionally fragile. Robyn Carr opens with Clare finally leaving her serial cheater husband, and there's this moment where Clare's own adult son basically tells her she should've left years ago. That hit me in a weird place. Not because my husband is a cheater (hi, Jason, if you're reading this), but because there's something about being a woman who keeps choosing everyone else's comfort over her own that just... yeah. You know?
The book follows Clare and her two sisters - Maggie, who's a doctor drowning in her own marriage problems, and Sarah, who's dealing with an empty nest and a husband who barely notices she exists. Carr rotates between all three, and the sister dynamic is genuinely the strongest part. There's a scene where they're all sitting around a kitchen table with wine, being brutally honest with each other about their lives, and it felt so real I almost poured myself a glass at 10 AM.
Now here's the thing - the first half drags. Clare has this whole situation with her ex-husband Roger who keeps showing up like a bad penny, and there's a younger police officer named Sam who's interested in her, and a man from her past named Pete. Three love interests sounds exciting on paper, but Carr spends a LOT of time on Clare going back and forth about Roger when literally everyone - the sisters, the reader, probably Roger's own mother - knows she should be done with him. I kept wanting to fast-forward through the Roger scenes like I fast-forward through the Bluey episodes Lucas has already seen forty times.
But the second half? The second half picks up considerably. Once Clare actually commits to moving forward and the sisters start making their own brave choices, it clicked. Maggie confronting her workaholic tendencies and Sarah deciding she deserves more than being invisible in her own home - those arcs ended up being more satisfying to me than the main romance. Someone to Trust gave me that same feeling - where the secondary characters quietly become the whole reason you stayed.
Thérèse Plummer Doing What She Does Best (Mostly)
Plummer is warm and conversational in exactly the way this book needs. Her Clare voice is grounded and a little weary, which fits perfectly for a woman who's been putting up with too much for too long. She gives Sam this earnest, slightly boyish quality that makes you understand why Clare would be tempted by a younger guy. And her Roger? Appropriately smarmy. You can hear the charm and the BS in equal measure.
Where it wobbles a bit is Sarah. Plummer pitches Sarah's voice in this slightly breathy, tentative register that started grating on me around hour six. Sarah is supposed to be timid, I get it, but the voice choice made her sound more like a cartoon sidekick than a real person going through a quiet crisis. It's not a dealbreaker, but every time the POV shifted to Sarah I had to readjust.
The pacing of the narration itself is solid at 1.25x. Plummer doesn't rush emotional moments, and the dialogue flows naturally enough that I never lost track of who was talking - even after Sophie woke up screaming, I dealt with a diaper situation, and came back fifteen minutes later. Survived 47 pauses and still made sense.
Who's Sitting in Their Car for This One
If you loved Virgin River, this is Carr in the same lane - women rebuilding, found family energy, small-town-adjacent warmth, satisfying endings where everyone gets what they deserve (good and bad). Not groundbreaking, but sometimes you don't need groundbreaking. Sometimes you need a book that says "hey, it's okay to choose yourself at forty" while you're sitting in your garage avoiding the dinner dishes.
If you need fast pacing or can't handle a slow build, maybe wait. The Roger back-and-forth in the first half is genuinely tedious. But if you can push through to hour five or six, the payoff with all three sisters is worth it.
I finished this across four days of nap times and car sits. Satisfying ending - exactly what I needed. Didn't make me ugly-cry at pickup, but I did get a little misty during the final sister scene. My book club will love this (if I ever have time for book club again).
Car time approved. Just be patient with the first half.
