2 Fantastically Awesome Books BJ Thinks You Need to Read: February 2025

Young Rich Widows by Kimberly Belle, Layne Fargo, Cate Holahan and Vanessa Lillie I LOVED that this one took place in Rhode Island in the 80s.  RI has a storied history of organized crime. In fact witness protection was started here in RI because of all the organized crimes that were going on.  In this story the 4 women who were the wives/partners of 4 partners in a high end law firm are brought together because a plane crashed killing all 4 of their spouses.  Immediately after the plane crashed a local notorious mob boss started harassing these women for the $4 million that their spouses owed him. The story takes us through these women all figuring out that their spouses weren’t who they thought they were, and also through the underworld of organized crime and the very shitty things that mob bosses did in the 80s to keep control and get ahead. Very good read.

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins This is not what I would have normally picked, it was a book club read, but I really liked it. The Let Them Theory is a way for people to control their reaction to the world around them and disappointing or crappy things that happen to them in it. The idea is if someone is doing something you don’t like you say “Let them” and then in response to it you say “Now Let me…” Like for example when you learn that a friend has said mean things about you behind your back you say “let them” and then “let me now focus on the people who wouldn’t say bad things about me.” Or even “Let me reach out to that person and make sure that they’re OK maybe something is wrong…” This is something I’ve worked to employ in my life long before reading this book to deal with my reaction to people in my life who haven’t exactly been nice to me as well. It is freeing, it does help to say “Oh, this person is behaving that way. That wouldn’t necessarily be my choice. But let them.”  Remember, we cannot control other people, only our reaction to them.