[amazon_link id=”0452298822″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Title : Pastor’s Wives
Author : Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
Publisher : Plume Books
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Pages : 359
Source : Publisher
Rating : 3.5/5

Candace Green, Ginger Green and Ruthie matters are pastors’ wives. Their husbands work for the Greenleaf mega-church. Aaron Green is the senior pastor and his wife pretty much runs the organization. Ginger is Candace’s daughter-in-law while Ruthie is the wife of newly hired pastor Jerry Matters. All three women face their own challenges and work to overcome them. Essentially the book is about life for three “chosen” women. Like everyone else their lives have ups and downs too, and “Pastors’ Wives” is about how they make peace with them.

This book is briskly paced. We learn about each of the women via chapters devoted to their points-of-view. Candace is a sharp, astute dragon of a woman. Her bidding is done. She has strong likes and dislikes, and Ginger is one of the latter. Ginger faces her own quandary when her unsavory past comes reeling out into the limelight. In need of support Ginger turns to her husband Timothy, but he seems to put church above everything else. Atheist Ruthie thrust from being a Wall Street whiz’s wife to being a woman whose husband has found God, finds her new role hard to accept.

The author does a good job in fleshing out each of the women – they felt real to me. I like Ginger most of all; her problem seemed the most pressing and her character seemed to show true courage. Candace seemed to be the ruthless head of a large organization. This seemed a realistic portrayal because in such a position, no wilting wall-flower will do. Petite Candace is iron-willed and wily, and goes after what she wants.

One can tell a lot about a couple by the way they fight. Aaron joked; Candace bristled. Aaron held forth; Candace reasoned. Aaron scowled; Candace stood firm. Never did she raise her voice. Never did she give way to passion and unreason. Over the years she had honed her ability to clear her mind of murky recrimination and focus on the issue at hand. She never, ever lost.

Meanwhile, Ruthie, the new kid on the block, wants to support her husband as much as she can, and is coerced into “volunteering” her time. She is doing the church’s work, but accepting and open as she is, her new-found religious duties cannot quiet the questions in her mind.

While the majority of the book was fine, I felt that the solutions presented at the end were watered down; things ended on an unrealistically rosy note. The problems these ladies faced were earth-shaking, life-changing ones, and I did not expect their lives to settle down pat, like pieces of a snug jigsaw puzzle. While the three women seem strong and intelligent, and show streaks of independence, in the end it seemed like they made their peace for “world good” – everyone lives happily everafter.That kind of lessened the impact of the book, so it ends up with 3.5 stars instead of the 4 I’d expected to give.

Pastors’ Wives was an interesting look into the workings of a mega-church and the effort and will it takes to run large religious organizations. I read through this book pretty quickly; the pace and the characters drew me in. Overall a  quick, pleasant read.