I decided to read The Next Best Thing having just finished Somebody To Love. Somebody to Love deals with Parker and Nicky as main characters and with Ethan and Lucy as side characters. The Next Best Thing is Ethan and Lucy's story of how they ended up together. I kind of like that Kristan Higgins did that with the stories. It sort of adds more depth to the characters on both sides. 
 Lucy and Ethan were friends from school. Lucy married Ethan's brother Jimmy after they fell in love at first sight. Jimmy dies in a car accident months after they were married and Lucy of course becomes a young widow. She starts working in her family's bakery with her mother and aunts who themselves are all widows who have chosen to remain single all these years. 
 Lucy decides after 5 1/2 years that she wants to get married and have a family. From there it's a long battle dealing with the past and coming to terms with how well you know those you love. 
 I liked Ethan's character a lot. He was just the right amount of masculinity but was still caring and sensitive enough without ending up too whiny. He was just a generally good guy. 
 Lucy was a nice character, but for me, the story had her crying almost every other page and it got to be a little too much. I think that made me a little unsympathetic to Lucy. If the crying scenes would have been cut down then it would have been better. She was an emotional wreck for a lot of the book. I would have liked to have seen the Lucy from Somebody to Love (which, granted, does take place after the events in this book so everyone is happier all around). 
 One thing I liked about Somebody to Love was that we got perspectives from both our main characters' points of view whereas this book is only told from Lucy's point of view. I would really have liked Ethan's side of the story and maybe this would have helped with the overload of Lucy's emotions throughout. 
 Overall, it's a cute story about moving on but not forgetting. About figuring out your feelings and even if your scared keeping on trying. Sometimes love was right in front of you, you just have to look. Typical Kristan Higgins book, and sometimes that's just what you need to read.