Married for seven years, romance writer Tish hasn't forgotten her first love Fergal who abandoned her after an argument and is now a famous rock star and painter. Her husband James is reliable, mother approved, and they have just bought a cottage in the country and are ready to start a family together. But as the renovations begin and Tish settles into village life, James increasingly finds reasons to come home late and drunk or to stay at his mates place in town. And as his behaviour becomes increasingly suspect, Fergal comes crashing back into her life.

Tish is an endearing character who puts up with far more than most women would from her shit of a husband. Finished in a day, light read but well enjoyed. ( )

Fergal is a famous rock star, reputed to life a wild and promiscuous life. But he still remembers the 17-year-old Tish, who fell for him in quite a dramatic way...

The story takes place when Tish is 30 and comfortably married to the reliable but slightly dull James. Inevitably her path is going to cross with Fergal's again, and inevitably her marriage with James is going to take a downward turn. I started by feeilng sorry for James, but despite being 'good husband material', at least according to Tish's mother, he's a demanding and chauvinistic person who treats Tish like an unpaid housekeeper, and treats her successful novel writing as a hobby.

While the main plot is predictable, there are fascinating observations about village life, and some wonderful minor characters. There is a hint of mystery about Tish’s own past, and also about why James is spending increasing amounts of time away from home, but in both cases I easily guessed what was going on, long before Tish herself was enlightened. I wasn’t surprised, either, at a more significant revelation near the end of the book which somehow startled Tish - but none of that mattered.

‘Good Husband Material’ is light, and fluffy, and good fun. I read the second half of the book almost in one sitting and did not get bored for a moment. All in all, I would recommend this as ideal light holiday reading; it’s available for the Kindle as well as having been re-published in paperback.
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This book promised much but delivered little in terms of character or plot. It's seriously overwritten and events take an absolute age to be described and dealt with. So much so that what I thought must surely be a time period of about six months turned out to be just a month, so the descriptions do drag themselves out to a painful extent.

The characters are also wearingly cliched - I didn't believe any husband would be as utterly appalling and without any good points at all as James was - it got to the stage when I just kept laughing in a resigned fashion and rolling my eyes at how horrid he was. Mind you, Tish is such a wet blanket and emotional dunderhead that part of me really couldn't blame him.

The romance between Tish and the rock star has no heat about it at all, and I cared not a hoot about whether they got together or not. Which is a bit of a downer in a romance novel, I have to say - they just weren't interesting enough.

However, with all that said, I do think that Ms Ashley's writing itself (if a good editor would just sort the descriptions out and cut the timeline nonsense) is pretty good - after all, it made me read to the end, even though I hated the people. So I suspect that this author would do a lot better with a sleeker story and less dull characters, so I may well try another of her books at some point. ( )

My favorite of hers to re-read, the story is predictable but the characters are a hoot and the humor hums throughout. ( )