After her husband's death, thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton tries to hold it together, attempting to be a graceful widow à la Jackie Kennedy. However, Sophie is a mess, and in a funny and heartwarming fashion, the book chronicles Sophie’s rise from the ashes as she struggles to pull herself out of depression and forge a new life.

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one, partner, or spouse will relate to this book and Sophie’s grappling with keeping her sanity while facing a crushing loss.

I love this book because it showcases the essential goodness of people. In these times of hate-filled words and dishonesty, that’s an affirmation we all need. August is a teacher on an RV trip to national parks to scatter his son’s ashes—a trip he wants to take on his own, in grief and bitterness. Instead, because he’s just a good guy, he ends up with three tag-alongs—a pair of boys, wounded by their father’s neglect and self-absorption, and a dog. The trip—and the kindness they inspire in each other—helps them all heal. It’s a trip that changes them all forever for the better.

After a tragedy that killed his wife and several other members of a small community in America, Lucas makes an unlikely bond with a young man who everyone else has ostracised. This relationship will both be the way forward in his healing AND push him over the edge into a complete breakdown. The novel unfolds in letters from Lucas to his Jungian annalist, who is either unwilling or unable to continue their work together.

I found the book a delight from the beginning, and as a therapist myself, I enjoyed the central role of the wounded healer. Sometimes, however, the book came across as very American, especially the relationship with guns and the continual deification of small-town life. The third act contains a shocking and satisfying twist that adds another layer to the book. As a therapist myself, the biggest takeaway–which I am still contemplating–is the link between creativity and… show more.

I remember how engrossed I was when I first read this story.

This is yet another inspiration for the plot of my own story. It’s another story that explores how characters faced with grief can come together, connecting through the loss in their lives.

I’ve always been fond of broken characters who help repair each other. In Letters to the Lost, the characters begin writing anonymous letters to each other about recurring issues in their lives. There is something quite heartwarming about the way others can help you heal. I think it’s a beautiful story, something I wish I could say I’d written. 

I first read this YA novel as a teenager and have never forgotten it.

The book has long been out of print in the UK, but a few years ago, I laboriously tracked down an Australian ex-library copy to re-read. I was fascinated to realise the book actually falls into the (psychological) horror genre (having thought I hated horror after being traumatised as a kid by Nightmare on Elm Street!). I could also now see how, at heart, it is also a heartbreaking family drama.

Del-Del later became a huge inspiration for my debut novel Little White Lies, a psychological thriller about a family desperately struggling with the miraculous return of their teenage daughter Abigail following her abduction seven years previously.

This is one of those books that catches you by surprise. I wasn’t sure I could handle all the death pervading this story from start to finish. But woven amidst the grief are determination and courage as Gauge and his friend Roux fight for survival and evade the authorities. By the end, friendship and hope twinkle through death’s veil and they’re out in full force by the epilogue. I love the magical wolf narrator, who may seem secondary to the plot but in fact mirrors Gauge’s and Roux’s despair from loss and intense need for love and family. In the end, friendship saves them all.

This almost dialogue-free graphic novel brought me closer to Nature, giving me an opportunity to stop and listen, to admire, and to be more present.

The beauty and intricacy of the illustrations reminded me of why I enjoy being in the woods so much – the unexpected animal encounters, the surprising small changes in the plants around me, the different speed of life.

To expand our compassion (and our own world), we have to recognize that there are more than Human characters and stories that need to be heard. 

There’s a special pleasure in reading novels set in the place you’ve long lived, and there’s also a special pleasure—at least for me!—in diving into subcultures with strong and strange beliefs. Owen Egerton delivers on both in Hollow. Set in the Austin far removed from tech money and hip new restaurants, Hollow follows Oliver Bonds, a former religious studies professor whose life unraveled after the death of his young son. Oliver finds distraction in Hollow Earth theory and the idea a whole different world lies inside the one we currently occupy. Hollow broke my heart in the best sort of way with its exploration of grief, regret, and the lengths we go to in order to survive being human.

This is one of those books that’s hard to talk about without giving too much away because the magic is in the twists and turns. At a certain point in reading, I closed the book, letting out a little “oh no” because I’d just realized what was coming, and I was both dreading it happening and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to get to that scene.

This is very much a car crash-in-slow-motion story. I hated the antagonist. I also knew I probably would have been drawn in by her charisma if I’d met her in real life–beautiful malice is the perfect term to describe her. This book was one that I felt physically, carrying it around for several days afterward as I relived moments in my head.

One book that I really recommend reading is the novel The Midnights by Sarah Nicole Smetana. The main character, Susannah, is a seventeen-year-old girl who plays a mean guitar like her former rock star father whose attention she craves very much. She is driven with passion to pursue her dream even after her father suddenly dies unexpectedly, and must uproot to a new city where she eagerly takes on the challenge. The story is an emotionally charged coming-of-age novel involving loss, creativity, and feeling confident in your voice, while feeling confident in your choices to define who you are.