Review: Happily Ever After

File this one under "guilty pleasure": Marilyn Griffith's latest installment in the Sassy Sisterhood series packs enough truth, humor and drama in its pages to satisfy anyone who likes to indulge in fiction that goes down as easily as hot chocolate on a cold winter day.

Set in an all-too-believable suburb where McMansions reign and Appearances Are Everything church-goers the norm, Happily Ever After revolves around a flawed young woman struggling to redefine her life as a wife and new mother. Part of her trouble is that she's already gone through the trouble of redefining herself ... and there are some people (like her aptly titled mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth) who just won't let her forget it.

As a main character, Tracy speaks with a voice that is pitch-perfect: unsteady, slightly unsure and always questioning. Griffith has nailed what it's like to be a new mom with a keen eye that leaves nothing to the imagination. You want insecurity? Pride? Faltering confidence? Joy? Love? It's all here, in abundance.

As Tracy surrounds herself with a crew of mentoring women, she begins to steady her own ship; her life, and her family have all suffered as she's turned inward. The cast of characters that pour into Tracy are as real as the folks who warm the pews each Sunday. Some are invaluable resources that water your soul. Others are unable to grasp the depth of the grace that our company of believers should lavish on one another.

Tracy finds herself in a very different place at the end of the book than she does at the beginning. Refreshingly, this character has grown in huge measures, and she has taken us along for the ride. What more can you ask from in a book?