Husband Material by Emily Belden

Charlotte Rosen has a great career and is on the lookout for a great relationship. Her desire to find the right man—the perfect man—is what led her to creating a dating app she believes will knock all other dating apps out of the water.

But, Charlotte has a secret. Charlotte has already been married. She already had the perfect husband. And when he died, her world was turned completely upside down. And it's about to happen again.

A fire threatens the mausoleum where her husband's remains have been housed for the past five years and so the company has shipped said remains back to Charlotte for her to rehome. Which means revealing her widowed state to those around her. And also means facing her husband's death once again. But when a secret surfaces in the middle of all this upheaval, Charlotte has to face the fact that her life may not be as perfect and organized as she thought.

Emily Belden's latest is sweet and charming, but it's also a bit all over the place.

Charlotte works crunching data at a company that builds companies. Basically, they hire influencers to attend parties, grand openings, and other events to post about said events, and create buzz about businesses. And Charlotte is the one who puts all the data together into a package any layman can understand.

She loves data. So much so, she uses it in her dating life, creating an app that will collate online activity to help her find her perfect mate.

But then her husband's ashes arrive out of the blue. And Charlotte has spent so much time trying to hide the fact that she's a widow that she clearly has never really dealt with some of the impact of being a widow in the first place.

It affects her friendships. It affects her job. It affects everything around her.

The subplots of the book are where the story gets tangled a bit. Fortunately, Belden had built a main character interesting enough to carry the plot along even when it starts to feel like it's straying into even more unfocused territory.

And it does all come together in the end.

Overall, Husband Material is a cute rom-com-ish read that will pull at your heartstrings.