A renowned grief expert and neuroscientist shares groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning.

In The Grieving Brain, neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O’Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm, and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future without them.

The Grieving Brain addresses:

• Why it’s so hard to understand that a loved one has died and is gone forever
• Why grief causes so many emotions—sadness, anger, blame, guilt, and yearning
• Why grieving takes so long
• The distinction between grief and prolonged grief
• Why we ruminate so much after we lose a loved one
• How we go about restoring a meaningful life while grieving

Based on O’Connor’s own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain combines storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.

A death occurs about every twelve seconds in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau. What happens in the hours and days following a death is something most of us have no knowledge of. In Getting Smart about Death, author Jane Filetic changes that by sharing basic information that can make a world of difference. Using an efficient, need-to-know manner, she covers such topics as: the four things needed immediately after a death occurs; ten helpful suggestions to consider when a death is imminent; answers to frequently asked questions following a death; the times in life when it is essential to express our own final wishes. Getting Smart about Death is a simple, straightforward guide that will help you be prepared when a parent, spouse, partner, sibling, child, or best friend is nearing the end of life or has reached the end of life. Information is not just power; in the case of death, it is peace of mind.

Having already lost his mother and only brother, twenty-four-year-old Will Boast finds himself absolutely alone when his father dies of alcoholism. Numbly settling the matters of his father's estate, Boast is deep inside his grief when he stumbles upon documents revealing a secret his father had intended to keep: He d had another family before Will's a wife and two sons in England.

This revelation leads to a flood of new questions. Did his father abandon this first family, or was he pushed away? Still reeling from loss, Boast is forced to reconsider the fundamental truths of his childhood and to look for traces of the man his father might truly have been. Setting out in search of his half brothers, he attempts to reconcile their family history with his own, testing each childhood memory under the weight of his father's secret. Moving between the Midwest and England, from scenes of his youth to the tentative discovery of his new family, Boast writes with visceral beauty about grief, memory, and his slow and tender journey to a new kind of love.

With the piercing gaze of a novelist, Boast transforms the pain and confusion of his family history into an achingly poignant portrait of resilience, revising the stories he's inherited to refashion both his past and his present. Heartbreaking and luminous, Epilogue is the stunning account of a young man s struggle to understand all that he has lost and found, and to forge a new life for himself along the way."

Daddy Fixes Everything provides children and their parents with tools to cope with departure and loss; so doing in language and register that are age-appropriate (5-14). The story introduces a father who is ever-busy fixing broken toys and household sundries while surrounded by his children's commotion. All is well until one child (Danielle) discovers that the pet hamster is not moving. Figuring dad, who can fix just about anything, can fix the hamster as well; Danielle arranges a rescue operation, only to find out that resurrection is not included in the father's repertoire of skills... The story then takes a different tone as the family, particularly the children, presented with the first-time experience of facing death and its emotional ramifications, must come to terms with the passing away of their pet. It is a unique story, in approach and its related rewards.

Mother, daughter, wife and friend. Maggie Pink is a lot of things to a lot of people, but have any of them noticed that she's drowning...Maggie is a mother to a stroppy teenager, a wife to a befuddled husband, and a daughter to two very different women. She has always known she's adopted, but has she ever understood what that means? Not really. Following the death of her mother, Maggie finally feels able to go in search of her birth mother Morag, and heads to the Highlands of Scotland with her disgruntled daughter Roxie in tow, leaving her crumbling marriage to worry about another day. The family reunion is bittersweet, but everything is blown wide open when Roxie unearths Morag's explosive teenage diaries. Why did Morag give Maggie away? What really happened all those years ago, and how have the echoes of the past resounded through the generations, like ripples in a puddle? And when all the secrets and promises are out in the open, will Maggie finally have an answer to the question - who do you think you are Maggie Pink? In turns funny, heart-breaking, nostalgic and utterly compelling, one thing's for sure, Maggie Pink's story will stay with you forever... Janet Hoggarth is the bestselling author of The Single Mums series. Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes, Mike Gayle and Jenny Eclair. What readers are saying about Janet Hoggarth: 'A heart-rending, heart-warming, heart-stopping and hilarious tale of a mother's love and a wounded soul rediscovering her awesome potential for life and (we are left hoping) for lasting love.' 'Sometimes heart-breaking, frequently laugh-out-loud funny and always searingly honest. The story is a rollercoaster and one that I was hooked on until the very end. More from Janet Hoggarth please!' 'Best book I've read for a long time! An honest and empowering read.' 'A real page turner! This book is written in a heartfelt and endearing way... the author manages to create a realistic story full of joy, heartbreak, tears and laughter.'