Title: Love and Happiness
Author: Ben Burgess Jr.
Genre: African-American romance
Age Group: Adult (18+)
Rating: 4,5 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Karen has it all: a handsome husband, beautiful twin daughters, a lovely home and a great job. Karen also has a secret; she’s cheating on her husband, with not one man, but two.
On the outside her life seems perfect, but on the inside Karen feels neglected, bored and unappreciated. Yearning for affection and excitement, she falls into the arms of first Raheem and then Tyrell. Out of fear of losing her husband and breaking up her family, Karen ends the affairs but things don’t turn out how she planned. When Karen’s dirty secrets are revealed she must fight to keep her family together.
Chris is doing all he can to hold his marriage together. He loves Karen but she grows more distant every day. When she starts coming home later and later, he suspects she is being unfaithful. When Chris accidentally takes her cell phone what he finds changes their lives forever.
When tragedy strikes, Karen must decide if she should sacrifice her happiness for her husband’s love, and Chris wonders if he should stay with Karen because he still loves her despite her infidelity. But if they do stay together, will they ever find love and happiness again?
Sexy and relatable, insightful and inspiring, Love and Happiness shows us both sides of Chris and Karen’s story, and reminds us that sometimes to have it all, you must first lose it all.
Sometimes love isn’t enough to make people happy. In Love and Happiness, like the title suggests, the plot focuses heavily on love, happiness, and what the characters must do in order to achieve both. Karen has it all: handsome husband, beautiful kids, lovely home, a great job. But unfortunately all of that isn’t enough to give her happiness. She’s secrety cheating on her husband, and not just with one man, but with two, Raheem and then Tyrell. She ends the affairs, growing afraid she might lose her husband. But when her secret is revealed and her husband, Chris, finds out, she must decide if she wants to fight for their marriage, and if she still loves her husband or not.
Chris is struggling too. He tries to keep his family together because despite everything, he still loves Karen, but things aren’t what they once used to be. Can he trust her? Can they find love again? The book is told from the POV of both Chris and Karen to give us a full picture of their marriage and their issues. Especially Karen seemed to have a lot of those. It was hard to sympathize with her, and although I disliked her personality, I did like her as a character. If she hadn’t been as selfish and spoiled, the book wouldn’t have been the same, and unfortunately, there are way too many people out there who are exactly like Karen. It doesn’t often happen that the main character is described as the “villain”, but it works here.
The moment I started reading, I couldn’t put this one down. It’s about more than romance – it’s about family, love, about changing and having to change, and about our neverending search for happiness, and how hard it is to find that at times.
[…] Love and Happiness by Ben Burgess Jr. […]