'This wasn't the story I wanted to tell. The end happened in the middle.'
Part love story, part grief memoir, Dear Blacksmith recounts the author's brief and unconventional love affair with 'Blacksmith Paul', a maverick who lived out on the moors in the Peak District — and the heart-rending details of her grief after his sudden death, just eight months into their relationship.
Adapted from the much-loved blog Swimming Through Clouds, the story is told through a series of searingly-honest diary entries, reflections, and poems addressed to the Blacksmith. In a heartfelt rejection of 'stiff upper lip' culture, 'Writer Beverley' sheds all inhibitions to examine grief at its most raw and brutal; from planning her love's funeral with a family that she'd never met, to learning to live alone again following the loss both of her soulmate and her mother, a few weeks earlier.
A complex journey from the depths of sorrow to the beginnings of recovery, this book is a work of extraordinary sincerity; and ultimately, a hard-earned testament to the power of love and the resilience of the human spirit.
