Synopsis
What if you became an outsider in your own life?
Jennifer Hughes doesn’t have an extraordinary life, but that doesn’t matter – she loves her family and enjoys her job as a teacher. In her eyes, her unextraordinary life is utterly perfect.
But then, in the blink of an eye, Jennifer finds herself cut off from everything she knew and loved, confined to a strange new world and forced to watch from a distance as her family and friends pick up the pieces.
Can Jennifer hold her perfect life together, even though she’s not living it herself?
Available as an eBook & audiobook on all platforms. Paperback available from all good bookshops and online stores.
Ella Cook
Ella is one of those people who is addicted to the written word. She’s been obsessed with books since before she could walk. She decided to become a writer as soon as she realised that stringing letters together in the right order could actually be a career.
She grew up in the outskirts of London, where fairies lived at the bottom of her Grandma’s garden, so it isn’t surprising that she still looks for magic in every day life – and often finds it.
When she’s not living in a fantasy world of her own creation, she writes bids and develops programmes for children’s services, and lives in rural Warwickshire (where there are probably more fairies). She shares her house with two small parrots, one of whom likes to critique her writing from his favourite spot on her shoulder, and her husband who is ever loving and understanding and makes her gallons of tea in magical cups that can keep drinks warm for whole chapters.
Ella writes for both Ruby and Choc Lit. See Ella’s Choc Lit novel here …
I found this book almost impossible to read through my tears – such an absolutely heart wrenching, moving story. It’s hard to say that I enjoyed the book, even thinking of it again now to write this, chokes me up and I have never sought that in my preferred escapist reading, but I couldn’t put it down, so anyone who does like this kind of emotional story would surely relish it, and I do admire the author’s imagination – I will have to be completely objective and award at least 4 stars. I look forward to seeing whatever she comes up with next time.
Story of Jennifer (Jenn) who dies in a car crash but her husband survives. She lives in an alternative world watching her family pick up the pieces. She meets the family dog who passed away years ago. He is her link to the next world but she wants to help support her husband to get through his grief.
It is beautifully written and a superb debut novel.
This is a beautifully written book. Jenn is killed a car accident and her Husband David doesn’t know how he will cope without her. Their children Lottie and Matty also have to cope without their Mum. But Jenn is still with them, around them when she is needed, trying to ensure they know she is around them, that she hasn’t yet left their lives.
Jenn is in limbo, a grey world between Earth and the Afterlife but wants her family to be happy without her and wants to encourage David to move on and experience happiness again, even ensuring that she brings Ruth into David’s life.
Written from the viewpoint of each of the family members and of Ruth, showing their individual feelings and coping mechanisms, this story is emotive and I guarantee you will need a tissue to wipe the tears at the end.
The book explores love, grief, anger, moving on and this the afterlife in a brilliant way and I would highly recommend this book.
This is such a touching, unusual story. I loved it! I rarely cry over a book but I did this one! Several times in fact. Right from the start you are involved in the lives of David, Jenn and their family. I found it moving and hopeful, abnormal and believable. As you follow the family for a pivotal year you so want things to go well it is almost as if you are part of the family, or at the very least one of Jenn’s friends. Curl up with a cup of hot chocolate, packet of tissues and lose yourself in a story that affects us all.