Travis Smith is Death in the modern world, living quietly with his cat in a grey English town, offering comfort at life's end. When he meets Dalia, a young midwife, and her lively daughter Layla, he's drawn into their lives. A life-affirming, gently speculative debut that breaks your heart, then tenderly puts it back together.

Autorentext

Ben Reeves

Klappentext

For fans of Fredrik Backman, Virginia Evan****s and Lisa Ridzén, an astonishing, deeply moving novel about finding beauty in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death.

'This book will change your life' Joanna Cannon
'One of the most moving books I've read in a long while' Graeme Simsion
'The ending left me speechless' Matthew Quick

Travis lives an unassuming life with his cat in a small English town. Travis also happens to be the cosmic force of Death, visiting people in their final days and hours of life, before shepherding them into whatever happens next.

He listens to their stories, doesn't judge, and never tries to change anyone's fate... until he meets a young, single midwife called Dalia and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla. As he gets closer to this small, seemingly unremarkable family, Travis begins to learn what it is that makes life so worth living, and so what it is that is irrevocably lost in death.

Full of compassion and deep magic, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt might be a novel about Death, but it's also about the joy of being alive - appreciating each day we have, from the people around us to the strange wonder of our spinning world.

From the five-star reader reviews:

'This book has changed me'
'Completely took my breath away'
'Absolutely blew me away'
'It touched me deeply'
'I want to stand on the rooftops and shout: you MUST read this'