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    Grace After Henry: ‘A deftness reminiscent of Marian Keyes’ Irish Times
    Unavailable
    Grace After Henry: ‘A deftness reminiscent of Marian Keyes’ Irish Times
    Unavailable
    Grace After Henry: ‘A deftness reminiscent of Marian Keyes’ Irish Times
    Ebook382 pages5 hours

    Grace After Henry: ‘A deftness reminiscent of Marian Keyes’ Irish Times

    By Eithne Shortall

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Winner of The Big Book Awards: The Best Page Turners, 2018
    Shortlisted for the Popular Fiction Book of the Year: The Irish Book Awards, 2018

    An Irish Independent Book of the year, 2018

    Grace sees her boyfriend Henry everywhere. In the supermarket, on the street, at the graveyard.

    Only Henry is dead. He died two months earlier, leaving a huge hole in Grace's life and in her heart. But then Henry turns up to fix the boiler one evening, and Grace can't decide if she's hallucinating or has suddenly developed psychic powers. Grace isn't going mad - the man in front of her is not Henry at all, but someone else who looks uncannily like him. The hole in Grace's heart grows ever larger.

    Grace becomes captivated by this stranger, Andy - to her, he is Henry, and yet he is not. Reminded of everything she once had, can Grace recreate that lost love with Andy, resurrecting Henry in the process, or does loving Andy mean letting go of Henry?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCorvus
    Release dateMay 3, 2018
    ISBN9781786493200
    Unavailable
    Grace After Henry: ‘A deftness reminiscent of Marian Keyes’ Irish Times

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    Reviews for Grace After Henry

    4/5

    24 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Grace After Henry is funny and moving all at the same time, not an easy thing to achieve. But Eithne Shortall has definitely cracked it.Grace's boyfriend, Henry, has died. They were just in the process of embarking on the next stage of their life together when that was it, he was gone. She sees him everywhere, a natural effect of grief. He's in the restaurant where she works, at the graveyard, in the street. But then one day Andy turns up and he looks just like Henry. How does Grace deal with this? Well I can't say as I would give away major spoilers, but what I can say is that Eithne Shortall deals with it beautifully. Grace goes through a myriad of emotions, as you would imagine. And I just loved her! She's plucky, feisty, funny, she's everything you want a protagonist to be.Henry is only a character in flashbacks, but Andy is a prominent character and I thought he was great. In fact, there are many likeable, quirky characters in this book. Grace's parents, for instance, are just brilliant, not to mention Aiofe, Grace's arsy mate, Betty, Grace's very contrary and irritable neighbour, and Grace's boss at the restaurant, who is so famously rude to customers that the eatery is a sought after spot. Grace After Henry took me through all the feelings. I cried, I giggled, I was moved, I was torn between wanting Grace to be able to move on and then thinking she shouldn't. The flashbacks to Grace and Henry's time together are bittersweet, with the knowledge that they don't get their happy ending.I couldn't help but liken the writing style to Marian Keyes at times. The whole Irish humour, the bonkers family members and friends, and the way the book deals with great sadness without being maudlin were quite similar. But this is a writer with her own style and a fantastic talent. I found Grace After Henry to be a heart-warming and ultimately uplifting read. I think this book is going to be huge.
    • 4/5
      Grace finds herself almost widowed in the very first pages of this book. Her relationship with her late fiance, Henry, is told in flashback - snippets here and there of both the lovely and the annoying. By a weird set of circumstances, Grace finds herself face to face with what looks like Henry (but she is sure she has been having hallucinations of him so she has no idea what is going on). Meet Henry's twin - someone Henry & Grace didn't even know about. This novel explores what makes someone themselves and how circumstances can have huge impacts on who someone becomes. I had a lot of empathy for both Grace and Andy and the longing they have for connection.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed Love in Row 27, so I borrowed Shortall’s other novel. After her boyfriend dies, Grace keeps seeing him everywhere. Then she meets a man who looks unnervingly like Henry -- a long-lost relative of Henry’s she did not know about.This story is funny and touching. I didn’t expect it to be so compelling, nor, given that Henry dies at the beginning, make me so invested in his relationship with Grace. There’s a strong sense of place and history -- and it was interesting to read something set in contemporary Dublin (rather than yet another story set in London or New York).But mostly, it’s just very sad. And not just because Henry dies. In the end, even though Grace is still hurting, there are positive, hopeful developments in her life and she has the comfort of having made the right choices. But I was still left feeling sad about [redacted]. Being in the cemetery may not have made me feel any closer to Henry but sometimes it made me feel less alone.
    • 5/5
      An enjoyable love story that was not really a love story. I loved the voice of the main character Grace and how she described her relationship. A different and interesting premise that touched on a well-known issue in Ireland. I would like to read other books by this author.
    • 4/5
      Grace After Henry by Eithne Shortall is a poignant yet ultimately uplifting novel of healing from a heartrending loss.

      Grace McDonnell and her fiancé Henry Walsh are moving on to the next stage of their lives when he dies in a tragic accident. After retreating from life for a few months at her parents' house, Grace is finally ready to move forward. She moves into the house they purchased before his death and she returns to work. Yet every day remains a struggle for Grace as she thinks she sees Henry everywhere and mourns not just his loss, but the future they planned together. However, when her plumber turns out to be Henry's long lost twin brother, Andy, is Grace finally ready to truly move on?

      Grace and Henry are idyllically happy and eager to enter the next stage in their relationship. After Henry's death, Grace is mired in grief and guilt yet with the support of her parents and best friend, she faces her future without him. However, after she moves into their dream home, Grace still finds it difficult to carry on with her day to day tasks. She forces herself to go to work only to return to an empty house that leaves her depressed and missing Henry more than ever.  Help arrives in a very unexpected man but is Grace fooling herself as she and Andy grow close?

      Andy always knew he was adopted and after his mum passes away, he leaves Australia for Ireland in hopes of finding more information about his birth family. He is aware his birth mother and twin brother are deceased but he craves more details about his birthplace. Through sheer coincidence, he meets Grace and through her, he gets to experience the life he has always missed.  But is Andy a little too ready to accept the vestiges of Henry's life?

      Grace is comforted by Andy's presence and initially, it is difficult to understand whether she sees him as Andy or her lost fiancé. Their interactions soon have a bit of a familiar feel to them as they slip into easy camaraderie and quiet evenings together. But Grace is not eager  to introduce Andy to her family or friends and in fact, she lives in fear that people who knew Henry will see her with Andy.  Is their friendship fair to Andy? Is Grace doing to the right thing as becomes deeper enmeshed in his life? Are she and Andy making the right choice after an unexpected complication arises?  And most importantly, is Andy settling for less than he deserves as he embraces a life he feels he was denied with his flighty mum?

      Grace After Henry is a captivating novel  that is deeply affecting and quite impossible to put down. Grace is a very empathetic character as she tries to overcome her grief over Henry's loss.  Andy is an amiable, laid back man whose somewhat dysfunctional background leaves him uncomfortably eager to fill in for Henry. Eithne Shortall brings this thoughtful portrait of grief and starting over to a realistic conclusion.  An engrossing novel that I absolutely loved and highly recommend to fans of the genre.