Best Betts

8/7/2007 Stephen L. Betts Gretchen Peters, Burnt Toast and Offerings, Scarlet Letter Records On this, her fifth album, songwriter Gretchen Peters (“Independence Day,” “The Secret of Life”) delivers honest, often heartbreaking observations of life at the end of a 23-year marriage. Not surprisingly, there’s plenty of bitterness and melancholy in many of the tracks here, but there’s hopefulness as well. It’s a breathtaking tightrope act that could have gone horribly wrong for a lesser artist. Gretchen Peters makes it look way too easy, even when every track tells you there’s no way it could have been.