This debut novel, by JANE THOMPSON HASENMUELLER, is the heartbreaking story of two mothers, Isobel and Marah, who meet after their sons die in a terrorist attack on the campus of a small university in New Mexico. Isobel, a high school principal, seeks out Marah, a nurse practitioner in the USAF, for answers to her constant question of Why?

Forming a tenuous relationship at first, they each struggle through the constant grief that affects their lives and relationships in different ways. As their friendship grows into one of care and support, they realize the forces that brought about each son’s death. Only too soon, do Isobel and Marah come to understand the grief that comes from wisdom.

At once full of tragedy and hope, the story challenges the easy assumptions we make about events and others, and the hard lessons that grief imparts.