Skip to main content
L
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County)
All Lists
General Recommendations
Books About Death or Grieving: Fiction
Unpublished
Share
Fictional stories and novels about death, grief, sadness, and healing
Updated June 7, 2023
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County)
Milwaukie Ledding Library
A list cannot be published until it has at least four items.
List was unpublished.
List was published.
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
When you read this : a novel
Adkins, Mary
Paper Book
One of Real Simple's Best Books of 2019 One of Thrillist's Best Books of 2019 One of Good Housekeeping's Best Books of 2019 "Fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette will love this. . . a bittersweet, often funny novel about hope, memory, and...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The homewreckers : a novel
Andrews, Mary Kay
Paper Book
Summer begins with Mary Kay Andrews, in this delightful summer read about flipping houses, and finding true love. "Andrews (The Newcomer) sparkles in this fast-paced tale. Andrews's fans will eat this up." --Publishers Weekly "A fun story...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Mostly dead things : a novel
Arnett, Kristen N.
Paper Book
What does it take to come back to life? For Jessa-Lynn Morton, the question is not an abstract one. In the wake of her father's suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the taxidermy shop...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
June : a novel
Beverly-Whittemore, Miranda
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet comes a novel of suspense and passion about a terrible mistake made sixty years ago that threatens to change a modern family forever. Twenty-five-year-old Cassie Danvers is holed up...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
In the unlikely event
Blume, Judy.
Paper Book
In her highly anticipated new novel, Judy Blume, the New York Times # 1 best-selling author of Summer Sisters and of young adult classics such as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, creates a richly textured and moving story of three generations of families, friends and...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The grief of others
Cohen, Leah Hager.
Paper Book
Is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family? The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The familiar dark : a novel
Engel, Amy
Paper Book
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2020 (Mystery/Thriller) "From its gripping beginning to its sobering finale, Amy Engel's The Familiar Dark never fails to enthrall with surprising twists."-Associated Press A spellbinding story of a mother...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The music of bees : a novel
Garvin, Eileen
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER! A Good Morning America BUZZ PICK | A Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick | IndieNext Pick | LibraryReads Pick | Recommended by People ∙ The Washington Post ∙ Woman's World ∙ NY Post ∙...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The joy of falling : a novel
Harrel, Lindsay
Paper Book
Eva and Angela must learn to live again. One step at a time . . . It has been fifteen months since Eva and Angela lost their thrill-seeking husbands in a scuba diving accident. Both women are trying to navigate their way through the grief, but neither one is making much progress. Angela is barely...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
& this is how to stay alive
Kagunda, Shingai Njeri
Paper Book
In & This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Nyokabi's world unravels after her brother Baraka's death by suicide. When an eccentric auntie gives Nyokabi a potion that sends her back in time to when Baraka was still alive, it becomes her only goal to keep him that way. Nyokabi...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Sing them home
Kallos, Stephanie.
Paper Book
Sing Them Home is a moving portrait of three siblings who have lived in the shadow of unresolved grief since their mother's disappearance when they were children. Everyone in Emlyn Springs knows the story of Hope Jones, the physician's wife whose big dreams for their tiny town were lost...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Where reasons end : a novel
Li, Yiyun
Paper Book
A fearless writer confronts grief and transforms it into art, in a book of surprising beauty and love, "a masterpiece by a master" (Elizabeth McCracken, Vanity Fair). "Li has converted the messy and devastating stuff of life into a remarkable work of art."--...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Monogamy : a novel
Miller, Sue
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Book * NPR Best Book of the Year * People magazine Top Ten Books of the Year * BookPage Best Book of the Year * Good Housekeeping Best Book of the Year "A sensual and perceptive novel. . . . With humor and humanity, Miller resists the simple scorned-wife story and...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
I am homeless if this is not my home
Moore, Lorrie
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * A NEW YORKER ESSENTIAL READ * From "one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation" (The New York Times)--a ghost story set in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, an elegiac consideration of grief, devotion...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Dear Edward : a novel
Napolitano, Ann
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY * "Make sure you have tissues handy when you read [this] sure-footed tearjerker" (NPR) about a young boy who must learn to go on after surviving tragedy, from the author of the Oprah's...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Only child
Navin, Rhiannon
Paper Book
"Only Child triumphs. Zach, at only 6 years old, understands more about the human heart than the broken adults around him. His hope and optimism as he sets out to execute his plan will have every reader cheering him on, and believing in happy endings even in the face of such tragedy. . . ....
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Everything I never told you
Ng, Celeste.
Paper Book
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Winner of the Alex Award and the Massachusetts Book Award * Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The friend
Nunez, Sigrid
Paper Book
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatised by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Someday, Maybe
Nwabineli, Onyi
Paper Book
Here are three things you should know about my husband:1. He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado. 2. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because . . . 3. On New Year's Eve, he killed himself.
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Remote control
Okorafor, Nnedi
Paper Book
An alien artifact turns a young girl into Death's adopted daughter in Remote Control, a thrilling sci-fi tale of community and female empowerment from Nebula and Hugo Award-winner Nnedi Okorafor "She's the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Grief is the thing with feathers : a novel
Porter, Max
Paper Book
Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar--a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Summerland
Rajaniemi, Hannu
Paper Book
"It reads like John Le Carré if Le Carré ate a ton of acid before writingTinker Tailor Soldier Spy..."--NPR onSummerland From Hannu Rajaniemi, one of the most exciting science fiction writers in the last decade, comes an awe-inspiring account of the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The lovely bones
Sebold, Alice.
Paper Book
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The furrows : an elegy : a novel
Serpell, Namwali
Paper Book
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award * One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year * Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize "A triumph."--New York Magazine From one of the most celebrated new voices in...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The pilot's wife : a novel
Shreve, Anita.
Paper Book
Anita Shreve's hauntingly beautiful #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection about tragedy, grief, betrayal, and the 'impossibility of knowing another person.' As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to expect both intense exhilaration and long periods alone, but nothing has...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Violet
Thomas, Scott
Paper Book
Selected by Library Journal as one of the best horror books of 2019 "The sheer, skin-crawling fright is masterful. Thomas has crafted an indelible story...all wrapped in a supernatural shroud that unfurls from the heart of America. Whether or not thoughts can breathe,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Good grief : a novel
Winston, Lolly.
Paper Book
A brilliantly funny and heartwarming debut about a young woman who stumbles, then fights to build a new life after the death of her husband. The perfect book for anyone who has ever been heartbroken, lost someone they loved, or eaten too many Oreos.
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The cross gardener
Wright, Jason F.
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author, an inspiring story of life, love, and moving on. Married and the father of a young daughter, John Bevan had finally found the traditional family he lacked as an orphaned child. But all that disappears when a fatal car accident...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Moshi Moshi
Yoshimoto, Banana
Paper Book
"A beautiful translation . . . Yoshimoto deploys a magically Japanese light touch to emotionally and existentially tough subject matter: domestic disarray, loneliness, identity issues, lovesickness . . . [a] nimble narrative." ―ELLE In Moshi Moshi, Yoshie's...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or
log in here.