When We Say Goodbye by Michelle Vernal
When We Say Goodbye
Can you love when all seems lost?
Ellie Perkins life was right on track
until her boyfriend Sam suffers a near-fatal car accident, leaving him in a
coma and all their future plans in limbo.
Desperately in need of something to fix,
Ellie has to find a project and when her grandparents old house is put up for
sale, she jumps at the chance. Because, like Ellie, the house is broken. And if
she can fix the house, then surely, it's just a matter of time before she and
Sam are back on their path to happily-ever-after...
In life, when the worst happens how do
you pick up the pieces?
A heart-breaking story of love, loss and the path to
forgiveness, perfect for fans of Faith Hogan and Amanda Prowse. To be read with
tissues
When We Say
Goodbye is my seventh standalone novel and it’s also the most personal story
I’ve written. It’s a book written with humour and warmth but also heartache.
This is a novel I didn’t feel able to formulate for over twenty years although
it was always there, waiting to be put down on paper. It was just too close to
home and it took so long to move through all those raw emotions at the time that
I had no wish to live through them again fictionally. This is also my only book
set solely in Christchurch, New Zealand where I live. It’s a city that’s had a
hard time in recent history something I touch on in the story. It’s also a
story about a sudden and shocking loss. This was something I experienced myself
when I was twenty-four years old.
It was an age
when my life revolved around going out and having fun and, to be honest, not
much else. A time when I had no responsibilities other than the old house my
parents had loaned me the money to put a deposit down on for. I thought nothing
bad would ever happen in my world and then it did. My on again, off again boyfriend killed
himself. It wasn’t intentional in so much as he made a bad choice at a party
unbeknown to me by taking LSD and experienced paranoia so bad, he decided to
throw himself off a roof. He was
twenty-five and I was there along with his mother when he did it. It destroyed
his small family and took away my ability to believe that things would always
work out okay in the end.
In hindsight I
didn’t deal with grief graciously. I drank way too much each time I went out but
someone was watching over me because I got through what was, without a doubt,
the worst year in my life. The old
house, I’d not long moved into was a life saver in so much as it had given me
roots. I couldn’t just pack up and move somewhere, anywhere but where I was. My
folks had trusted me with their hard-earned money not to let them down and it
was that trust that kept me going to work, repaying my loan and day by day
moving through the shock of what had happened. It was a process that had to
happen and running away would not have allowed it to. Then, a year later I met
Paul and the sun came out. We’ve been married eighteen years next February and
have two gorgeous sons.
Don’t get me
wrong though When We Say Goodbye is not a relaying of what happened when I was
younger. This book revolves around Ellie, a young woman whose life changes
forever when her boyfriend winds up on life support after a car accident. It’s
her journey through grief with scenes in the story where I’ve pulled from my
own experiences of it. Ellie immerses herself in fixing a broken house and in
doing so catches a glimpse of light at the end of the dark tunnel she’s found
herself in because there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, it’s called
hope.
This is a tale
that I hope will make you cry but also laugh because as Ellie says at
the start of the book, ‘Life
can be cruel and it can be unfair, but you know what? Sometimes it can be
wonderful.’
Purchase
Links:
Author Bio –
Michelle
Vernal loves a happy ending. She lives with her husband and their two boys in
the beautiful and resilient city of Christchurch, New Zealand. She’s partial to
a glass of wine, loves a cheese scone, and has recently taken up yoga—a sight
to behold indeed. She writes books that she hopes make you feel you are curled
up with your best friend having a cosy chat.
Social Media Links –
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