Out of the Clear Blue Sky

CW: flashback to heroine's sexual assault by a high school classmate

2.5 stars, rounded up. I've skipped several of Kristan Higgins' recent releases, and reading Out of the Clear Blue Sky did not make me regret those choices. Higgins takes the classic “heroine's husband leaves her for a younger woman” plot, but adds some ill-advised wacky hijinks, starting with the scorned ex-wife Lillie letting a skunk loose in the new couple's house. But that's okay, no consequences necessary because Lillie is a saint - a midwife whose patients all love her, a great cook, and a loving mother to a college-bound son. Sure she's completely judgmental about her patients who don't choose to have a drug-free birth experience (crowing over “a normal vaginal delivery without need for intervention or medication” as if anything else is abnormal) but unlike her sister, a wedding planner who feeds on her clients' greed, Lillie is on the side of the angels.

Approximately a third of the chapters are told through POV of The Other Woman, i.e. Melissa, who has risen above her humble beginnings in rural Ohio by using her beauty to snag a rich doctor and then investing her inheritance when he dies. Melissa is raising her niece while her sister Kaitlyn is serving time for drug dealing. Melissa's parents are so broadly characterized as white trash that they might as well be Cletus the slack-jawed yokel and his wife from The Simpsons. Kaitlyn's portrayal is extremely problematic; she's basically written off as “once an addict, always an addict” (she eventually accepts major bank from Melissa to buy more drugs, in return for relinquishing custody of her daughter) . Ms. Wiggins, there are millions of real people who previously used drugs but have fought hard to maintain their sobriety for years; you contribute to the stigma by making Kaylin such a hopeless case.

In addition to the First Wife vs. the Trophy Wife plot, Lillie addresses complex family dynamics with her sister and divorced parents. There is the start of romance and a face-to-face reckoning with the source of an old trauma. Meanwhile, Melissa shows there is a bit more to her than “the whore” who stole Lillie's husband. And, of course, the cheating ex-husband gets his comeuppance (in addition to the skunk episode).

Higgins has moved beyond her man-hungry heroines of earlier work, but her books still have a supercilious view of right and wrong. I think I'll go back to ignoring her.