For Life

For fans of Julia Baird's Phosphorescence, Heather Rose's Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here or Indira Naidoo's The Space Between the Stars comes an unforgettable and moving insight into loss, hope and starting again, aided by the incredible healing power of nature and a community of unexpected angels.

I landed in this place six years ago in a welter of panic, pain and instinct. I'd been in fight-or-flight mode for twelve months, wanting only to keep on flying – or fleeing. I brought almost nothing of my previous life. Grief had made me ruthless; I threw and threw. (And yes, I knew how appalled you'd have been, Pete.)

My father implored me to stay with the familiar. Constants, he said, would give me scaffolding. Decades ago, when his second wife, my stepmother, died suddenly, habits were his protection and rituals his comfort - along with a packet or two of cigarettes a day. Friends, too, urged me to wait, to slow, to keep, to stay, but instead, I discarded and flew – or fled? - to this harbour…

A place of shelter or refuge.