Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story

A candid, compulsively readable memoir from New York Times bestselling author Isabel Gillies, Happens Every Day chronicles the sudden collapse of a marriage after an affair—and one woman’s journey through heartbreak, motherhood, marital betrayal, and starting over after divorce.

Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life—a handsome, intelligent, loving husband who was a professor; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house in their Midwestern college town; the time and place to express all her ebullience and affection and optimism. Suddenly, the life Isabel had made crumbled. Her husband, Josiah, announced that he was leaving her and their two young sons, bringing their marriage to an abrupt end. Happens every day, said a friend.

Far from a self-pitying diatribe, Happens Every Day reads like an intimate conversation between friends. It is a dizzyingly candid, compulsively readable, ultimately redemptive story about love, marriage, divorce, family, heartbreak, and the unexpected turns of a life. On the one hand, reading this book is like watching a train wreck. On the other hand, as Gillies herself says, it is about trying to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, and loving your life even if it has slipped away.