First published 2011
Jack lies dying as Christmas approaches, preparing to leave behind his wife Lizzie and their three children. Then tragedy compounds tragedy when Lizzie dies in a car crash. The children scatter to relatives across the country while Jack faces his final days alone. But death refuses to claim him. Against all medical odds, Jack recovers from his terminal condition and rises from his hospital bed with a single mission: bring his family back together. He gathers his children and takes them to Lizzie's childhood home on the South Carolina coast. There, as summer unfolds by the ocean, a grieving father must learn how to parent alone while his children struggle with the loss of their mother. Jack fights to forge new bonds with kids who have become strangers, searching for ways to honor Lizzie's memory while building something new from the wreckage of their old life.
Genres: fiction, grief, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: South Carolina
Period: Christmas, Summer
337 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing
Content warnings: death