In keeping with our rain theme, I selected The Goodbye Storm by Danielle Stewart to review.

Stewart is a USA Today Best-Selling Author of over forty books.

The Goodbye Storm is Book One of the Rough Waters Series.

In the early hours of New Year’s Day, Dr. Noah Bell is driving home with his wife Rayanne down an icy country road. Attorney Charlie Chase is also driving home with his wife, Autumn. Their cars collide. Broken glass, twisted metal, and the cries of equally broken and twisted human beings disrupt the silence. Rayanne and Charlie are killed instantly; Autumn and Noah survive.

Weeks after the accident and Charlie’s funeral, Autumn is finding it hard to get out of bed and function though she is home from the hospital and physically recovered. She has quit her job and can’t face the thought of getting behind the wheel of a car. The sympathy of family and friends has quickly run it course, except for Charlie’s dad, Mike, who becomes her rock. Autumn thinks of her life as being folded in half – everything that happened before the accident is on one half and everything since the accident is on the other. The two lives seem destined to remain separate.

Noah, who suffered only minor injuries, is back at his job in the hospital emergency room taking extra shifts and sometimes sleeping in his car to avoid going home to his empty house. He tunes out his co-workers when they attempt to express their concern and offer condolences. He rebuffs the efforts of Rayanne’s mother, Donna to grieve together and support each other. Finding no support from Noah, her husband, or her friends, Donna attempts to reach out to Autumn, who also refuses to talk to her.

Two people who have suffered tremendous losses are grieving in seemingly polar opposite ways. Stewart does an exceptional job of pointing out the realities of loss and the individuality of grief. People do not experience loss in the same way. They do not process their grief in the same way. Sometimes grief is so overwhelming, it’s easy to forget other people are also hurting. There is no magic formula for how, and when to go through the five stages of grief.

When Mike is diagnosed with a reoccurrence of colon cancer, he needs to go out of state for treatment, but he refuses to go unless Autumn joins a grief support group. This forces Autumn to start to regain control of her life. Getting up, showering, putting on clean clothes, and leaving the safety of the home she shared with Charlie aren’t easy tasks, but Autumn forces herself to start functioning again.

She attends the weekly meetings, but never speaks. She notices a young man named Jamie also doesn’t participate in group discussions. In conversation, Jamie can be tactless, but he understands how she feels, and they develop an unexpected friendship. Travis, Jamie’s grief sponsor, lost his wife five years earlier. He also seems to be someone who understands.

Noah tries to focus on work and saving lives to make up for the one life he never got the chance to save. He punishes his body by exercising to the point of exhaustion and self-medicates to feel numb. It starts affecting his work. Work has become Noah’s refuge. Without it what will he do?

Stewart compares grief to a storm, and she interweaves their stories in a way that will keep you guessing. Autumn and Noah will have to find rock bottom before they can begin to heal.

Noah describes his grief as, “I’m in this storm, wind and rain pelting my body all day long.”

Autumn reptiles:

“Storms always stop eventually. They pass; they get weaker. Maybe it’s always going to rain on us, but some days it won’t be so hard.”

There’s also another interesting reference made by Noah to Autumn, “You’ll make it through the storm. You have a couple of umbrellas.” The umbrellas he is referring to are Jamie and Travis – friends who will always be there to offer shelter from the rain. It’s a lovely sentiment full of hope and hope is something no one should ever be without.

Book Series by Danielle Stewart: 

The Missing Pieces Series 

The Brave Moments Series 

The Piper Anderson Series

The Edenville Series

The Clover Series

The Piper Anderson Legacy Mystery Series

The Rough Waters Series

The Barrington Billionaire’s Series

The Broken Mirror Series. 

For more information about Danielle Stewart, visit her website, https://authordaniellestewart.com/

Cover Design for The Goodbye Storm: Ginny Gallagher, http://ginnygallagher.com

Photos take from the author’s website with no intention of copyright infringement