R: Reinventing Leona by Lynne Gentry

Such a heart-rending, and yet at the same time fun, account of the trials and tribulations experienced by a small town pastor’s wife, when her husband unexpectedly suffers a fatal heart attack during a Sunday morning sermon. Leona Harper has been the quintessential pastor’s wife—her entire identity and existence wrapped up in her husband and the church.
When the uncompassionate and self-important head deacon decides to immediately seek a new pastor as soon as Pastor Harper is buried, Leona finds herself in the position of seeking employment while coping with her all-consuming grief. She fully expects to be thrown out of the parsonage and essentially homeless very shortly, and were it not for an outspoken friend and members of her church who comes to her aid, she might very well have succumbed to her situation.
As if all this weren’t enough, she is estranged from her two children as well as her mother, the very people one would hope to be able to lean on with the loss of so much. Readers follow along as Leona rediscovers who she is as a person, and finds the strength and faith to face her circumstances.