In Every Life is a novel about Ben and Harper, a couple who are on their honeymoon when he becomes quite ill, and he is eventually diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. As his way of coping with his illness, he devises a plan in which he hopes to have her find someone new to love before he dies so he knows she will be okay in the future.
It is told in several timelines: the past when Harper loved Liam, a man she shared an intense week with ten years earlier, the “one that got away”; the present which is her life with her cancer-ridden husband; and when she does a magical moon ritual, a new future as a successful artist living with Liam, but without Ben; and, when she realizes she needs to be with Ben, she performs a second ritual and returns to her old, but significantly changed life—she finds a fancy new bathroom in her condominium and begins work on a solo art show.
Harper is an artist who walks away from her big break in New York City and her new love, Liam, when his old girlfriend returns. She returns to Chicago and becomes an art teacher, giving up her dream of becoming an artist. She has a meet-cute with Ben at an obstacle course, they fall madly in love, quickly marry, and move to Chattanooga. She still has thoughts of her long-lost love, Liam. Ben, as part of his coming to terms with his own death, wants to set Harper up with a new love. The New York Times gets wind of his plan and sends a reporter to interview him and Harper. That reporter, in a bit too much of a coincidence, is Liam.
Harper’s journey towards acceptance and peace is the best of women’s fiction as she learns what love is, what her career means to her, and learns to cope with the loss of the husband she dearly loves. It’s quite an emotional book. I did get a bit weepy at the end. I was glad that Harper has time after losing Ben to learn to rely on herself and mature into an artist (and mother, a last minute “gift” from Ben).
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In Every Life (Harper Muse, August 6, 2024) is available through:
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You can read my reviews of other works by Rea Frey here:
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