Customer Reviews

A Matter of Wife & Death (Secrets from Lulu's Cafe Series #2)

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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!

Pastors' wives are real people. Real women dealing with temptation, self-esteem, child-rearing, child-bearing, and rocky marriages. Often these women feel alone, unworthy of the path God has called them to. In A Matter of Wife & Death, (Secrets from Lulu's Café Series), Ginger Kolbaba & Christy Scannell craft a story of five such women, sisters in Christ and fellow pastors' wives of Red River.

On a retreat for the wives, a bickering session rises up and one of the women end up dead, another accused, and the others left questioning their friendship and right and wrong. The reader is taken in small part on a mystery. On a larger scale, the reader is taken along as these women discover what is really important in their walk as the wives of pastors, and the mothers of preachers kids.

As we read of their struggles, we realize how normal these women are who are often placed on pedestals. We laugh with them, cry with them, and pray with them. We rejoice as they triumph.

I thought at first I'd have trouble keeping up with and associating with five main characters, but as I read, I had no trouble at all and joined in with the women's friendship group. Good job.

You don't have to be a pastor's wife to enjoy this excellent series. It is easy to get hooked on the story lines, and to develop empathy for the unique challenges of being a paster's wife. All women can learn from the way in which problems are handled. The plot moves swiftly; truly a book you hate to put down.

The feisty foursome of Desperate Pastor's 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!

Welcome back the Pastor's Wives. These four women, all married to pastors, meet twice a month at Lulu's Cafe, forty miles from home. Here, safe from prying eyes, they are free to say what they really think, to encourage each other, and to pray for each other. And the all have problems. Take Mimi. She has a new baby who cries constantly, seldom sleeps, and she's a nervous wreck. Lisa has a teenage daughter who is being a real brat, and would benefit from a good swat across the rump, which in this age of enlightment would probably get her mother idicted for child abuse. Jennifer has tried to get pregnant for ages, but nothing works, and she's sick of women who shell out babies like peas. Felicia's four-year old son is biting people, and she's afraid it's a symptom of deeper problems. And of course, there's Kitty Katt, the snobby thorn in their flesh. A Matter of Wife and Death is a light-hearted look at the realities of being a pastor's wife. All too often they're expected to serve without pay, take the jobs no one else wants, be seen and not heard, and be the closest thing to perfection this side of the Pearly Gates.
God bless them all. A clever follow up to Desperate Pastor's Wives, book one of this engaging series.

The five pastors' wives of Red River, Ohio meet every Tuesday at Lulu's Café, forty miles from their churches in order to nosh and commiserate. They share their woes that they cannot tell anyone else even their husbands.

Mimi Plaisance left teaching to be a stay at home mother to her four preadolescent children, but the newborn Milo is driving her insane as he always cries. Mimi never sleeps except when driving as she feels like his personal 24/7 slave.

"Golden" Kitty Fleming remains a snob as her spouse pastors the largest congregation. She is the self anointed Queen of the Southwest Pastors' Wives fellowship society, but fears being on top means others want to displace her.

Jennifer Shores is the church secretary where her husband Sam is the pastor, but she wants children and has none after a decade of marriage. She is even jealous of the single moms she councils at the crisis pregnancy center even though she knows their lives are hard.

Lisa Barton is a stay at home mom to her two teens. She has the DNA for being a pastor as her parents are the pastors of a nearby church. However, her daughter Callie is rebelling and causing problems for them at the church with her behavior.

Public relations guru Felicia Lopez-Morrison came with her husband and their now four year old child from Los Angeles two years ago. She worries that her firm will close the Cincinnati office where she works and that her son has reverted back to his terrible twos biting people.

Although rotating the story lines of five lead characters is a bit overwhelming (novellas seems more suited), each of the wives seem real and their woes genuine. Each has problems that they handle differently with Mimi's proving quite a stunner. Fans will enjoy dining and gossiping at Lulu's café with the pastoral quintet (see Desperate Pastors' Wives).

Harriet Klausner

As a non-Christian, I enjoy this series because it shows the religious right to be what they are: hypocrites. Despite the friendship of the four PW women, they are extremely judgmental and narrow minded. Church wars...egads! That is often true to life with the feuds of parishioners and how they all talk about each other. I had been to Evangelical churches and find just what I am reading in the book. Felicia is full of herself and does not live as the Baptists demand: a woman being subservient to her husband. Mimi lives a quiet life of desperation and does hate Milo deep down inside because she really was forced to have this child due to being too weary to say "no" to her husband one night when he demanded sex. It is entertaining but sort of pitiful at the same time.