The Bright Side : A Happy Book About a Sad Year

“Anyone who has had their life completely gutted and rewired will adore this family story. Bradbury's dark humour and gloriously upbeat voice makes it the perfect antidote to a tough year. I loved it!” —Plum Johnson, author of They Left Us Everything The hilarious and moving story of how your life can change utterly in a single year—and how, even when the universe decides to kick you around, you can find yourself rewarded with grace. Cathrin Bradbury’s seemingly stable world implodes in the space of a few months. Her beloved parents die; her marriage limps to an end after twenty-five years; her heavily mortgaged house turns against her; and a promising new romance ends in crushing disappointment. Never one to slow down for self-reflection, Bradbury now suddenly finds herself in her fifties, stone still, and crumbling to rubble in the midst of so much turmoil.   But the wrecking ball tearing her existence apart has cleared the way for a new path (or three or four) to open up. As a distraught Bradbury navigates these setbacks and heartbreak, she discovers welcome surprises and unexpected upsides revealing themselves as well. After 20 years of upheaval and estrangement, her troubled brother makes an astounding recovery to health and sobriety; she is reunited with her closest childhood friend after decades of absence; and Bradbury and her four siblings feel their way to becoming a new kind of family without their parents. She discovers that the path of profound change is steep, the view obscured, but there’s light ahead—if you’re brave enough to look for it.   Cathartic, hilarious, and deeply moving, The Bright Side proves that every situation has a silver lining—even when it’s just the duct tape holding the fragments of your life together.