Chuck's world seemed to shrink after his wife, Cat, passed away. He can't stop thinking about her unfailing generosity; she was a beacon of hope in an often unforgiving world. Chuck doesn't find much pleasure in the things he and Cat used to do together, but he decides to take a trip to their beloved Hilton Head Island in his wife's memory. When two unlikely companions join Chuck on his multistate road trip, he realizes how much joy life still holds and that Cat's influence extended further than he ever realized. Joella (A Little Hope, 2021) weaves the companions' journeys together to illustrate the many ways to find contentment with others--through friendship, neighborly connections, or romantic love. Fans of Catherine Ryan Hyde's My Name is Anton (2020), Mary Alice Monroe's The Summer Guests (2019), and Hazel Prior's Ellie and the Harpmaker (2019) will appreciate the novel's multiple plotlines and heartwarming, character-driven charm. Empathetic without becoming saccharine, A Quiet Life highlights the power of closure and the importance of a connected, compassionate community.

After sudden, life-changing loss--then what? In his second novel, Joella returns to the narrative gambit of his debut, A Little Hope (2021), establishing parallel narratives for several small-town characters and then--poof!--revealing how they turn up in each other's lives. Here the town is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the time is deep winter, and the characters are Chuck, Kirsten, and Ella. Chuck is a recent widower in his early 70s whose grief after the death of his wife is immobilizing, and regret over one poorly resolved disagreement--he was wrong, so wrong, and now he can never fix it--becomes an obsessive concern. Kirsten is a 20-something whose beloved father was murdered during a gas station robbery; like Chuck, she is derailed by grief, abandoning plans to apply to veterinary school and moving numbly through her days working at an animal shelter. Ella is a young mother whose ex-husband picked their daughter up early from school one day several months ago and completely disappeared. As collateral damage, she also lost her house and is now working two menial jobs to pay rent. Joella develops these characters with enormous empathy and clarity in the sonorous narrative tone of a benevolent god who sees and knows all and who can be counted on to address the chaos he has wrought on their lives. The guiding image of the book is a cardinal: According to Chuck's late wife, Cat, "the most special birds because they kept us company in winter when the other birds leave." "Be someone's cardinal," she urged her middle school students, one of whom, it turns out, was Kirsten. The childlike pleasure of discovering connections like this is one of the most basic joys of reading and is key to Joella's storytelling. The soothing tone and warm worldview of this grown-up bedtime story will be good for what ails you. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Three people navigate different kinds of grief in the sentimental latest from Joella (A Little Hope). Chuck Ayers, a Vietnam veteran and recent widower, dithers over whether to go alone on the annual trip he took with his wife, Cat, from Pennsylvania to Hilton Head, S.C., and replays in his mind a fight he'd had years ago with Cat involving his disapproval of her support for a young aspiring artist. Kirsten Bonato, whose father was murdered as a bystander during an armed robbery, works at an animal rescue and tries to sort out her crush on her boss, who's going through an acrimonious divorce, and her pleasant, casual dating of a hunky coworker. Ella Burke delivers papers and works tedious shifts at a bridal store, trying to stay busy in hopes she's ready if her eight-year-old daughter, Riley, who was kidnapped three months earlier by her ex-husband, is ever found. Turns out Kristen is a former student of Cat's, and Chuck bumps into her while visiting the animal rescue where Kristen works. Later, Chuck impulsively gives Ella his second car after seeing her fall while she delivers his paper. The interconnections feel manufactured, though as the characters make small progress in their efforts to move on from their pain and dilemmas, Joella builds toward a convincing set of resolutions. Readers might feel like they've been here before, but it's comforting nonetheless. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Nov.)