Days of Awe: A novel

An Amazon Best Book of August 2015:Days of Awe could be maudlin, it could be filled with clichés about loss and floundering in midlife, worse: it could be dull. Instead, it's wry, smart, shiny, and bright--filled with observations about grief and loss that will make you sit up and begin to underline. In the span of a year Isabel Moore's life comes crashing down: her best friend Josie dies; her marriage crumbles; Hannah, her "sad, snarling wolf cub of a girl" turns against her and she's left to pick up the pieces. In coping with her new life, where "the silence in the house came alive, grew feral" Isabel slides and slips from narrating her present to remembering her past – from the spark of meeting someone new to an eighth grade history assignment, from her husband packing his bags to their troubles conceiving, from her weekly bawdy confessionals with Josie to uncovering Josie's secrets after her death. Despite its hard-hitting and heart-hurting subject matter, Lauren Fox (the accomplished author of Friends Like Us and Still Life With Husband delivers a witty, moving and enjoyable portrait of how motherhood, marriage, friendship and memories keep you barreling forward. –Al Woodworth