Margins
Handle with Care book cover
Handle with Care
A Novel
2026
First Published
3.97
Average Rating
336
Number of Pages

Three women walk into a post office. No, this isn't the beginning of a joke. It's the beginning of a hostage situation. On an ordinary spring afternoon in a small-town post office, a domestic dispute spirals out of control. The husband pulls a gun and barricades himself inside with four hostages—his wife, a young woman searching for her purpose in this world, a midlife mom facing her only daughter's graduation and imminent departure, and an elderly woman hiding a secret about her life at home. Outside, even the negotiator is forced to put aside her own personal baggage in order to find a peaceful resolution to a volatile situation . . . using exclusively words. Each of the three women who walked into the post office is carrying something that, if mailed, would profoundly change her life. Through the course of the daylong siege, these strangers will forge unforeseen bonds and reveal things to each other they haven't even told those closest to them. And none of them will ever be the same.

Avg Rating
3.97
Number of Ratings
62
5 STARS
29%
4 STARS
47%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
Author · 13 books
Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is the author of When We Were Worthy, The Things We Wish Were True and five previous novels. She speaks to women's groups around the US. She is the co-founder of the popular women's fiction site, She Reads www.shereads.org. Marybeth and her husband Curt have been married for 26 years and are the parents of six children. The family lives in North Carolina. Marybeth spends most of her time in the grocery store but occasionally escapes long enough to scribble some words. She is always at work on her next novel. You can find her at www.marybethwhalen.com.
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