Loss/Grief

By Stewart O’Nan
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

Managing a failed seafood restaurant in a run–down New England mall just before Christmas, Manny DeLeon coordinates a challenging final shift of mutinous staff members, an effort that is complicated by his love for a waitress, a pregnant girlfriend, and an elusive holiday gift.

By M.L. Stedman
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, August 27, 2013. 1:30 PM.

Moving his young bride to an isolated lighthouse home on Australia's Janus Rock where the couple suffers miscarriages and a stillbirth, Tom allows his wife to claim an infant that has washed up on the shore, a decision with devastating consequences.

By Saralee Rosenberg

Shelby struggles to cope with her family’s drama and crazy antics.

By Nina George
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

Prescribing books that offer therapeutic benefits to his customers, a literary apothecary in a floating bookstore on the Seine struggles with private heartbreak before embarking on a journey of healing at the side of a blocked writer and a lovelorn chef.

By Heather Demetrios

Two sisters struggle with the secrets brought to light in the aftermath of their parents' sudden death.

By Sue Miller

For Eva, the divorced and happily remarried mother of three children, and her adolescent middle child, Daisy, the death of Eva's second husband John in a car accident turns their lives upside down.

By Patricia Wood

Having learned essential life skills from his dedicated grandmother that helped him overcome his low IQ, Perry finds himself without a caregiver at the age of thirty-one and wins a fortune by playing the lottery, a lucrative windfall that brings him more family than he ever wanted.

By Lisa Genova

Two women meet by accident on a Nantucket beach and are drawn into a friendship. Olivia is a young mother whose eight-year-old severely autistic son has recently died. She comes to the island in a trial separation to try and make sense of the tragedy of her Anthony's short life. Beth, a stay-at-home mother of three, is also recently separated after discovering her husband's long-term infidelity.

By Ben Schrank

Famous for his fifty-year-old self-help book on love and relationships, Peter engages in a passionless relationship after the death of his wife and questions the validity of his advice when an ambitious young editor launches a contest for struggling couples based on his book.  

By Ava Dellaira

A troubled teen writes poignant letters to influential celebrities who died young, confronting in the process her own efforts to fit in, navigate her splintering family and come to terms with a past trauma.

By Alice Sebold
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

“In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living (From the Publisher).”

By Jhumpa Lahiri
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 27, 2014. 1:30 PM.

Frequently mistaken for one another in spite of very different natures, brothers Subhash and Udayan Mitra pursue respective lives in rebellion-torn 1960s Calcutta until a shattering tragedy compels Subhash to return to India, where he endeavors to heal family wounds.

By Fredrik Backman
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 24, 2015. 1:30 PM.

A curmudgeon hides a terrible personal loss beneath a cranky and short-tempered exterior while clashing with new neighbors, a boisterous family whose chattiness and habits lead to unexpected friendship.

By Ron McLarty
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

"Working as a quality control inspector at a toy factory in Rhode Island, friendless alcoholic Smithy Ide considers himself a loser until a tragic event prompts him to set off on an epic cross-country bicycle journey (From the Publisher)."

By Nathan Englander
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, August 25, 2015. 1:30 PM.

In 1976 Buenos Aires, Kaddish Poznan, the outcast son of a whore, and his wife, Lillian, are devastated by the disappearance of their own son, Pato, which forces them into the bleak corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases in search of the truth.

By Jill Santopolo

Mourning the death of her father and reeling from an astounding secret, Nina Gregory finds herself caught between the world of her longtime boyfriend and her passionate boss.

By Dennis Lehane

“When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car drove up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened - something that ended their friendship and changed the boys forever… (From the Publisher).”

Became the movie: Mystic River.

By Kristin Hannah
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Rosalia White, Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Reunited when the elder's husband is sent to fight in World War II, French sisters Vianne and Isabelle find their bond as well as their respective beliefs tested by a world that changes in horrific ways.

By Charles Frazier

Named the guardian of her murdered sister's troubled twins, Luce of 1950s rural North Carolina struggles to build a family with the children and a new romantic prospect before being targeted by the twins' father--her sister's killer--who believes that the children are in possession of a stolen cache of money.

By Kazuo Ishiguro

Five short stories using music and nightfall as themes.

By Colm Toibin

Struggling with grief and financial hardships after the death of her beloved husband, widow Nora Webster struggles to support her four children and clings to secrecy in the intrusive community of her childhood before finding her voice.

By Ann Hood
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

An obituary writer searching for her missing lover at the turn of the twentieth century is linked to a woman considering leaving her loveless marriage in 1963.

By Lisa Tucker

Having been raised in utopian isolation by her once-famous Hollywood father, twenty-three-year-old Dorothea leaves their New Mexico sanctuary in search of her missing brother and discovers terrifying truths about her family's past.

By Rosie Thomas

The effect on five married couples when a single woman moves into town. The protagonist is Nina Cort, a good-looking widow. Unable to stand the loneliness of London after her husband’s death, she moves into a town where she has friends and proceeds to create havoc with their marriages.

By Jodi Picoult
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian

“The budding romance between two teenaged children of two families who have been lifelong friends and neighbors culminates tragically in an abortive suicide pact, leading to a gripping courtroom drama (From the Publisher).”

By Michelle Falkoff

After his best friend, Hayden, commits suicide, fifteen-year-old Sam is determined to find out why, using the clues in the playlist Hayden left for him.

By Kaui Hart Hemmings
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk

Overwhelmed by her son Cully's avalanche-related death, single mother Sarah St. John struggles through the well-meant advice of loved ones before a young woman appears on her doorstep, carrying a secret that will change their lives irrevocably.

By Priscille Sibley

After an accident leaves his wife Elle brain dead, Matt Beaulieu, resolving to take her off life support, changes his mind when the doctors discover that she is pregnant, a decision that results in a controversial legal battle with Elle's family.

By Kimberly McCreight
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

“When her high-achieving 15-year-old daughter Amelia supposedly commits suicide after she is caught cheating, litigation lawyer and single mother Kate Baron, leveled by grief, must reconstruct the pieces of Amelia’s life to find the truth and vindicate the memory of the daughter whose life she could not save (From the Publisher).”

By Ayelet Waldman
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

“Two families living on the Maine coast find their way through grief together after a tragic accident takes the lives of a young, newly-married couple, which results in a broken marriage, a bonding between bereaved siblings, and healing in the form of an adopted girl’s prodigious violin talent (From the Publisher).”

By Jude Deveraux
Series Summerhouse

Three women--Amy, Faith, and Zo?e--come to a special Maine refuge to confront the pain and heartbreak of the past, as the mysterious Madame Zoya and her sister Primrose send them on a trip back through time that could alter their futures.

By Jason Mott
Series The Returned
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

When their son Jacob, who died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966, arrives on their doorstep, still eight years old, Harold and Lucille Hargrave must navigate a strange new reality as chaos erupts around the world as people's loved ones are returned from beyond.

By Erich Maria Remarque

In a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, Ernst and the few survivors of his company return home after the war to find food in short supply and their families changed.

By Courtney Summers

Told from the alternating perspectives of nineteen-year-old Sadie who runs away from her isolated small Colorado town to find her younger sister's killer, and a true crime podcast exploring Sadie's disappearance.

By John Banville

Following the death of his wife, Max Morden retreats to the seaside town of his childhood summers, where his own life becomes inextricably entwined with the members of the vacationing Grace Family.

Became the movie: The Sea.

By Tatiana de Rosnay
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

Parisian architect Antoine Rey searches for details about his mother's past after his sister recalls a repressed memory about their mom's intimate involvement with a woman, and finds his life changing from the death of his daughter's best friend, his son's arrest, his father's terminal illness, and a budding relationship with a a Harley-riding mortician.

By Stephanie Butland
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

After her husband, Michael, tragically drowns and rumors start to swirl about him, Elizabeth Gray is left to sort through her feelings and the new information about her husband’s actions leading up to his untimely death.

By Juliette Fay
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Devastated by her husband's sudden death, Janie LaMarche and her two small children find unexpected support from her ipecac–toting aunt, an "unflinchingly nice" parish priest, and a contractor hired by Janie's late husband.

By Stephanie Kallos

When Hope Jones vanishes in the midst of a tornado in 1978, her three children deal with the sudden loss in their own ways, but when their father dies decades later, they delve into their history to come to terms with the tragedy that has always haunted them.

By Christopher Isherwood

After the sudden death of his longtime lover, George must adjust to life on his own as a professor in Southern California in the early 1960s. During the course of an ordinary day, George is haunted by memories as he seeks connections with the world around him - Publisher's description.

By Paolo Giordano
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

"A bestselling international literary sensation about whether a "prime number" can ever truly connect with someone else… A stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and the weight of childhood experience that is set to become a universal classic (From the Publisher).";

By Thrity Umrigar

Set in modern-day India, it is the story of Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife and Bhima, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years.

By Amber Dermont
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

Devastated by the suicide of his prep-school roommate and disdaining the trappings of his affluent Manhattan life, Jason transfers to another school and bonds with a troubled classmate whose subsequent death compels Jason to uncover the truth.

By Julie Myerson
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

Seeking a new life in the countryside, Mary and her husband move into a long abandoned house, but when unusual sights and sounds begin to occur Mary starts questioning if her grief has turned into madness.

By Robin Antalek
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

Four children of dysfunctional parents, Amy, the baby, George, the good son, Kate, daddy’s girl, and Finn, the drunk, try to make peace with their past, and with each other, as they struggle to attain adulthood after the death of their father.

By Elin Hilderbrand
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Follows the lives of four high school students, their friends, and families after a fatal car accident on graduation night on Nantucket has lasting repercussions for everyone involved.

By Holly LeCraw

Seven summers ago, Marcella Atkinson fell in love with Cecil McClatchey, a married father of two. But on the same night their romance abruptly ended, Cecil's wife was found murdered and their lives changed forever. Amid the wreckage is Cecil's daughter, Callie, fighting for her sanity with two young children, and his son, Jed, who, desperate to fill the void left by the death of his parents, seeks answers from Marcella only to begin a tortured love affair with her as she drowns in guilt, struggling to find some meaning to hold on to.

By Meryl Ain
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian

Twin sisters Bronka and JoJo Lubinski are brought to America from Germany by their Polish refugee parents after World War II—but in “idyllic” America, political, cultural, and family turmoil awaits them. As the girls grow older, they eventually begin to ask questions of and demand the truth from their parents.

By Carol Rifka Brunt
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Monday, April 21, 2014. 7 PM.

Her world upended by the death of a beloved artist uncle who was the only person who understood her, fourteen–year–old June is mailed a teapot by her uncle's grieving friend, with whom June forges a poignant relationship.

By Peggy Hesketh
Recommended By Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference

An 80 year-old, third-generation beekeeper who relates better to the constant companions in his hives than most people must come to terms with the loss of his long-time friend, Claire, who was killed during a burglary gone awry .