Never Say Never by Victoria Christopher Murray

Your best friend has an affair with your husband – could you forgive them?

That’s the question which created the catalyst for this novel. Miriam is grieving – her firefighter husband (Chauncey) has recently died in a fire and now she’s a single mom, forced to raise her three sons alone. She clings to her sister friends, Michellelee and Emily, hoping their love and support will help her get through this difficult time.

She also turns to Jamal, Emily’s husband, for support. Jamal and Miriam share a similar pain. Miriam’s husband, Chauncey, was Jamal’s best friend. The two were as close as brothers, and both were firefighters – so Jamal has lost his “brother” and Miriam has lost her husband. Both need to find a way to get through this difficult grief. They turn to one another for comfort – and that’s when their affair starts…

I enjoyed this story. Like all of Victoria Christopher Murray’s books, it was a page-turning novel, and I thought the characters were very realistic. Although both Miriam and Jamal were grieving, I still felt that they could’ve worked harder to resist temptation. Miriam feels bad about hurting Emily, and Jamal loves his wife. However, he just couldn’t resist the temptation – the grief seemed to make both Miriam and Jamal especially vulnerable.

Honestly, I doubt if I could forgive my best friend for such a deception. I know the Lord wants us to forgive, but…I think it would take me a LONG time to forgive my best friend, if ever.

So, if your best friend had an affair with your husband, could you forgive them?