Twelve Months and a Day by Louisa Young

TWELVE MONTHS AND A DAY by Louisa Young is a fairly slow moving, but remarkable story. It is truly about dealing with grief and trying to move on while still honoring someone you loved greatly. Four characters, two couples, shape the story. There is Jay and Ras – she is a singer turned GP who died recently after a long illness and he is a song-writer recluse who lives in the Hebrides. And, the other couple is Róisín and Nico – she is Irish and a film maker; he’s Greek and dies from a sudden heart attack. Ras and Róisín are devastated, but their professional lives overlap and they find each other with a gentle push from Jay. The novel is full of personal email correspondence as the two “widowy pen pals” learn to trust and share thoughts and feelings with each other. Yes, there are moments of sadness, but so many more of beauty and, ultimately, hope. TWELVE MONTHS AND A DAY received a starred review from Booklist which called it a “novel full of wisdom, joy, and sorrow.”