Twelve Months and a Day


 
 
 
 Praise for Twelve Months and a Day
 “A wonderful and inventive novel, sorrowful and hopeful in equal measure. It was a true pleasure to read.”
 —Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
 “Not many people can pull off a story where two ghosts try to bring the partners they left behind together, but Louisa Young apparently can and did. More than a novel, this is a treatise on love, death, and grief that utterly blew me away. One of the freshest love stories I’ve read in years.”
 —Colleen Oakley, author of The Invisible Husband of Frick Island
 “Equal parts tender, sparkling, and authentic, Louisa Young’s prose is like watching a flower open, each moment beautiful, mesmerizing, and better than the last. Twelve Months and a Day will have readers captivated from beginning to end.”
 —Amy E. Reichert, author of Once Upon a December
 “A tale of two love stories with a supernatural twist, Twelve Months and a Day is poignant and sad as well as funny and beautifully written and imagined. What if our beloveds lived on as ghosts and watched us grieve, what if they never really leave us, and what if some of these ghosts even meet? You will fall in love again as you read this clever book by a writer who understands grief. Hugely engaging and readable. A bittersweet pang in my heart as it ended. A page-turner.”
 —Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
 “What a writer. A raw and beautiful exposition on grief and loss but so beautifully earthed in the everyday. Terrific.”
 —Elizabeth Buchan, author of Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman
 “The words ‘emotional roller coaster’ seem coined for Louisa Young’s beautiful, bittersweet novel, as heart-stoppingly romantic as it’s heartbreakingly sad. . . . Young has a playfully light touch, delighting in the absurdity of the supernatural situation and the unusual romantic complications, even as she explores the heavy emotional burden that death brings. A lovely, moving, ultimately hopeful read.”
 —The Express (UK)
 “A modern-day Truly Madly Deeply 
 Also by Louisa Young
 FICTION
 
 Baby Love
 Desiring Cairo
 Tree of Pearls
 My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
 The Heroes’ Welcome
 Devotion
 
 NONFICTION
 
 A Great Task of Happiness
 The Book of the Heart
 You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol
 
 CHILDREN’S
 (with Isabel Adomakoh Young as Zizou Corder)
 
 The Lionboy Trilogy
 Lee Raven, Boy Thief
 Halo
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
 Publishers Since 1838
 An imprint of Penguin Random 
 
 To Michel Faber, with love and thanks.
 Of old age, in our sleep