Novels with Grief

Today is National Grief Awareness Day.  Here are ten novels that deal with themes of grief & grieving. 

Grace After Henry by Eithne Shortall - A quirky love story set in Dublin that's perfect for fans of PS, I Love You and Jojo Moyes, Grace After Henry is a funny, heartfelt debut novel about one woman learning what it means to move on and to let go When her fiancé, Henry Walsh, is killed in a freak biking accident, Grace feels like she's lost her own shadow. For five years, they'd been inseparable: five years of the most rollicking, soul-finding love Grace thought any two people could share. In his absence, Grace picks up the pieces of her life: She moves into the dream house they bought together, she returns to work as a chef, she watches TV with her nosy elderly neighbor, but through it all she's ever aware of the Henry-shaped hole in her life. Until his long-lost twin brother knocks on her door. Andy is Henry, and yet he's not quite. Newly arrived in Dublin on his own search for answers, he makes Grace's loss feel both greater and smaller. Soon Grace isn't sure if she's learning to let go or becoming desperate to hold on. Filled with a warm and zany cast of characters all searching for a sense of home, Grace After Henry is a funny, tender, and bittersweet story about love, loss, and second chances.

Haunting Paris by Mamta Chaudhry - In the summer of 1989, while all of Paris is poised to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution, Sylvie mourns the loss of her lover, Julien, and is unable to find solace in the music that has always been her refuge. But when she accidentally dislodges an envelope concealed in Julien's desk, she finds an enigmatic note from a stranger and feels compelled to meet this woman who might hold the key to Julien's past. 

The Heart Keeper by Alex Dahl - Two mothers. Two daughters. One heart. When Alison's beloved daughter Amalie drowns, her world turns impenetrably dark. Alison tries to hold it together throughout the bleak fall, but in the darkest days of the Norwegian winter she completely falls apart. In another family, Amalie's passing is a new beginning. After years of severe health problems, young Kaia receives a new heart on the morning after Amalie drowns. Her mother Iselin has struggled to raise Kaia on her own and now things are finally looking up. She's even made an affluent new friend who's taken a special interest in her and her daughter. Alison knows she shouldn't interfere, but really, she's just trying to help Iselin and Kaia. She can give them the life they never had, and by staying close to them, she can still be with her daughter. Kaia is just like her, and surely, something of Amalie must live on in her. As her grief transforms into a terrifying obsession, Alison won't let anything stop her from getting back what she has lost. 

In the Blink of an Eye by Jesse Blackadder - The Brennans, parents, Finn and Bridget, and their sons, Jarrah and Toby, have made a sea change, from chilly Hobart, Tasmania, to subtropical Murwillumbah, New South Wales. Feeling like foreigners in this land of sun and surf, they're still adjusting to work, school, and life in a sprawling purple clapboard house, when one morning, tragedy strikes. In the devastating aftermath, the questions fly. What really happened? And who's to blame? Determined to protect his family, Finn finds himself under the police and media spotlight. Guilty and enraged, Bridget spends nights hunting answers in the last place imaginable. Jarrah, his innocence lost, faces a sudden and frightening adulthood where nothing is certain. In the Blink of an Eye is a haunting, redemptive story about forgiveness and hope.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper - Two brothers meet at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. In an isolated belt of Western Australia, they are each other's nearest neighbor, their homes four hours' drive apart. The third brother lies dead at their feet. Something caused Cam, the middle child who had been in charge of the family homestead, to die alone in the middle of nowhere. So the eldest brother returns with his younger sibling to the family property and those left behind. But the fragile balance of the ranch is threatened. Amidst the grief, suspicion starts to take hold, and the eldest brother begins to wonder if more than one among them is at risk of crumbling as the weight of isolation bears down on them all. Dark, suspenseful, and deeply atmospheric, The Lost Man is the highly anticipated book from the bestselling and award-winning Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature.

Only Child by Rhiannon Navin - Squeezed into a coat closet with his classmates and teacher, first grader Zach Taylor can hear gunshots ringing through the halls of his school. A gunman has entered the building, taking nineteen lives and irrevocably changing the very fabric of this close-knit community. While Zach's mother pursues a quest for justice against the shooter's parents, holding them responsible for their son's actions, Zach retreats into his super-secret hideout and loses himself in a world of books and art. Armed with his newfound understanding, and with the optimism and stubbornness only a child could have, Zach sets out on a captivating journey towards healing and forgiveness, determined to help the adults in his life rediscover the universal truths of love and compassion needed to pull them through their darkest hours.

The Unmade World by Steve Yarbrough - Set against a backdrop of the current political and cultural upheaval in the US and Eastern Europe,The Unmade World is a thoughtful, scope-y literary novel with a dose of suspense that moves from Poland to California to the Hudson Valley and back to Poland. It covers a decade in the lives of an American journalist and a Polish small businessman turned petty criminal and the wrenching aftermath of an accidental, tragic encounter between these two on a snowy night in 2006 on the outskirts of Krakow. The accident costs the lives of the American journalist Richard Brennan's wife and daughter, an event that colors the rest of his life. It also leads to a downward spiral for Bogdan Baranowsk, leaving emotional scars as he suffers the seemingly inevitable loss of his business, his home, and his wife.

We Own the Sky by Luke Allnut - Rob Coates is a survivor.  He'd thought he'd won the lottery of life--a beautiful home, an incredible wife Anna, and their precious son Jack, who makes every day an extraordinary adventure. But when tragedy befalls his family, Rob becomes his own worst enemy, pushing away all he holds dear. With his world now suddenly just outside of his grasp, Rob turns to photography, capturing the beautiful skyscrapers and clifftops he used to visit--memories of the time when his family was happy. And just when it feels as though there's nowhere left to turn, Rob embarks on the most unforgettable of journeys to reclaim the joy and love he thought he'd lost. 

The White Book by Han Kang - While on a writer's residency, a nameless narrator wanders the twin white worlds of the blank page and snowy Warsaw. THE WHITE BOOK becomes a meditation on the color white, as well as a fictional journey inspired by an older sister who died in her mother's arms, a few hours old. The narrator grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, an event she colors in stark white--breast milk, swaddling bands, the baby's rice cake-colored skin--and, from here, visits all that glows in her memory: from a white dog to sugar cubes.
As the writer reckons with the enormity of her sister's death, Han Kang's trademark frank and chilling prose is softened by retrospection, introspection, and a deep sense of resilience and love. THE WHITE BOOK--ultimately a letter from Kang to her sister--offers powerful philosophy and personal psychology on the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit, and our attempts to graft new life from the ashes of destruction.

The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan - They say friends make life worth living... Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, Masha's life was forever changed by a tragic event twelve years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds comfort in her faithful canine companion Haizum, and peace in the quiet lanes of her town's swimming pool. Almost without her realizing it, her life has shuddered to a halt. It's only when Masha begins an unlikely friendship with the mysterious Sally Red Shoes, a bag lady with a prodigious voice and a penchant for saying just what she means, that a new world of possibilities opens up: new friendships, new opportunities, and even a chance for new love. For the first time in years, Masha has the chance to start living again. But just as Masha dares to imagine the future, her past comes roaring back... Like her beloved debut, The Keeper of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan's second novel introduces a cast of wonderful characters, both ordinary and charmingly eccentric, who lead us through a moving exploration of the simple human connections that unite us all.