I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This: 18 Assurances on Grief

Grief is a beast. It is terrible. Losing a loved one can feel like hitting a wall of pain. Best-selling mystery author Mackintosh knows this firsthand. She makes her nonfiction debut with this memoir about the death of her infant son. She admits she compartmentalized her grief. She could not process her loss, and 14 years after her son’s death, she was emotionally ambushed by it. On the anniversary of her son’s death, she shared her thoughts online because she felt so alone in her grief. She also wanted to offer hope to people who, like her, who were still struggling with their grief. Through the response she received, she learned that grieving is an act and that everyone experiences it differently. Sometimes the smallest thing can trigger a painful memory. She wrote this book, supplying 18 “assurances” for the hard moments in the grieving process and to comfort those who read it and let them know they are not alone.