In New York Times bestselling author Beth Harbison’s most emotional novel ever, a fractured family must come together at a beach house haunted by the past.
Willa has never fully recovered from the sudden death of her husband, Ben. She became an absent mother to her young son, Jamie, unable to comfort him while reeling from her own grief.
Now, years after Ben’s death, Willa finally decides to return to the beach house where he passed. It’s time to move on and put the Ocean City, Maryland house on the market.
When Willa arrives, the house is in worse shape than she could have imagined, and the memories of her time with Ben are overwhelming. They met at this house and she sees him around every corner. Literally. Ben’s ghost keeps reappearing, trying to start conversations with Willa. And she can’t help talking back.
To protect her sanity, Willa enlists Jamie, her best friend Kristin, and Kristin’s daughter Kelsey to join her for one last summer at the beach. As they explore their old haunts, buried feelings come to the surface, Jamie and Kelsey rekindle their childhood friendship, and Willa searches for the chance to finally say goodbye to her husband and to reconnect with her son.
Every Time You Go Away is a heartfelt, emotional story about healing a tragic loss, letting go, and coming together as a family.
There are actually two blurbs regarding this book on GoodReads and I kind of wish that the other blurb were the real one but I live in a lovely fantasy world where I have powers. This is one of those books where nothing happens, nothing happens and then bam, a lot happens and the author didn’t appear to have time to wrap it all up so parts of the last 30% of the book seemed rushed to me. I remember glancing at the percentage thinking, that’s all that’s left? There’s so much to do!
Willa decides to go to the beach house she owns with her late husband. She hasn’t been there since he died in the house three years ago, leaving her and their son Jamie to find their new normal and learn how to cope. There’s a couple of chapters of flashbacks to shortly after Ben died that seemed unnecessary to the plot to me but I think it was more about character development. Jamie and Willa don’t have the best relationship. Willa hates his girlfriend (so do I) and nags him all the time. Jamie is a teenager and really just wants to be left alone. They both are grieving in their own way but their communication suuuucks.
Most of the book was Willa getting the house ready to sell and talking to Ben’s ghost. Right, so there’s a ghost. Ben keeps showing up to talk to Willa and everyone else thinks she’s a lunatic as they keep catching her talking to herself. Through conversations with Ben, Willa begins to grieve and starts being more present to the people in her life, including Jamie and her BFF Kristen, who comes to stay at the beach house with them to help prep it for sale. Kristen brings her daughter Kelsey who is the same age as Jamie. We see the two of them rekindle their friendship from when they were kids while we are watching Willa grieve.
While I thought the book was a good look at grief and loss, I found it underwhelming when it came to the other plot points. There were too many things that seemed rushed, especially towards the end. I was left with a lot of questions, which is normal for women’s fiction, and why I don’t read a lot of it. I need my HEAs dangit.
Overall, While You Were Gone is a good character study and look at the grieving process. I give the book a solid 3 out of 5 stars. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t amazing.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of the story.
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