The Saving That Came After Loss

The Saving That Came After Loss: A Novel of Grief, Grace, and Starting OverWhen your heart stops, what part of you survives?

Krysta Montgomery never expected to bury her mother at the kitchen table. She never expected to survive a heart attack in her thirties. And she certainly never expected to find herself unpacking decades of grief, trauma, and religion in front of a stranger with a notepad and a kind smile.

In The Saving That Came After Loss, Krysta’s story unfolds with fierce honesty and quiet humor. Raised in a home where love came wrapped in Bible verses and expectations, she’s spent a lifetime trying to outrun her body, her past, and her mother’s relentless need for control masked as care. But when a sudden loss shatters her routine, Krysta is forced to reckon with what’s left: her mother’s Bible, a pile of unresolved memories, and a girlfriend whose steady love feels almost too generous to accept.

This is a novel about what we inherit, what we carry, and what we choose to let go. A tender and biting exploration of queer identity, religious trauma, binge eating, body image, and the long road to self-forgiveness, The Saving That Came After Loss is both a love letter to complicated mothers and a roadmap for healing after everything falls apart.

Perfect for readers who loved Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, or Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.