Cecil & Noreen

Drawn from the author's family history, this novel shows how ordinary people become extraordinary by their love for one another. Each year, in the days leading up to Cecil Connolly's wedding anniversary, he lies in bed in his Catholic nursing home, takes an old cash box from the bedside cabinet, and removes his most precious possessions: the letters his wife wrote to him in the months leading up to their marriage 60 years ago. And each morning when she comes to visit her husband, Noreen Connolly looks back on their shared life—their courtship and wedding, their friends and family, the journeys they made together—and asks herself what she did to deserve such a man. Compassionate and funny, this is a poignant and lyrical study of faith, family, and one couple's lifelong romance.