About the Book (and the Woman Who Wrote It)

 

This book contains swearing. A lot of it. If that offends you, stop reading now.

Still here? Good.

Since You’ve Been Gone is a story about grief. Real grief. The kind that dismantles your life, rewires your identity, and makes other people deeply uncomfortable.

No one tells the truth about grief. They hand you platitudes. Timelines. Inspirational quotes. They expect you to cry politely, heal quietly, and move on before the rest of the world gets tired of your sadness.

This book rejects all of that.

Belle is devastated. Loss has dismantled everything she thought she understood about life, love, herself, and what remains after death. She questions everything now — especially herself. And no matter how uncomfortable it makes other people, she cannot simply “pop a cork” in her grief and pretend she is fine.

Because grief doesn’t behave beautifully. It isn’t neat or polite or socially acceptable. It changes you.

And the people we love do not cease to exist simply because their bodies have.

Anyone who has ever begged for a sign will understand this book.

What Readers Are Saying

"Profane, confrontational, loving and, ultimately, reflective. I'm not ashamed to say I had to wipe away the odd tear or two. I think you have something quite special here."

"I absolutely adore Belle. What a great character, even after just seven pages."

"I love her already. This is probably exactly how I would grieve for a best friend."

"The cursing was a perfect touch. The character arc is great, as are all the music references."

"I was completely swept up in the world of it, thanks in no small part to Belle's wonderful epistolatory voice."

The Story Behind the Story

I wrote the first version of this book in 2020 without fully understanding why. A voice appeared in my head and refused to leave me alone. So I followed her.

I published it quietly in 2024 under a pen name because I was terrified of being seen. Terrified of attaching my real name to something this raw.

Then life cracked me open.

Within a single year, I lost my lifelong best friend of forty-eight years, my father, and my favourite aunt. The grief was catastrophic. Not poetic. Not transformative. Just brutal.

People didn’t know what to do with it.

Some offered platitudes. Others disappeared completely. I found myself apologising constantly — for crying, for raging, for not being “better” yet. As if grief is something performative. As if love is supposed to have an expiry date.

And suddenly I understood Belle in a way I never had before.

This book wasn’t just fiction. It was a mirror. A roadmap written by a version of me who somehow already knew what was coming.

Because grief doesn’t just break your heart. It strips you down to whoever you really are underneath performance, politeness, and survival.

That’s what this book is about.

Not surviving loss beautifully.

Surviving it truthfully.

Mediumship became part of that truth for me.

Not in a dramatic, movie scene way. In small, impossible moments. Dreams that felt too real. Flickering lights. Birds appearing at exactly the right time. A coin where no coin should have been.

Tiny things that reaffirmed what I have always known: relationships do not end where breathing does.

That’s why I finally chose to put my real name on this book.

Because someone out there is grieving in the dark, wondering if they’re losing their mind, wondering why nobody talks honestly about what loss actually feels like.

This book does.

What This Book Is Not

This is not a tidy grief memoir tied up with a neat inspirational ending.

It is not self help.
It is not “how to heal.”
It is not interested in pretending closure exists.

It’s a story about friendship, love, guilt, rage, secrets, and the unbearable weight of things left unsaid.

It’s also about Prince.

And snot blocks.

And a fish named Hannibal who eats his own babies.

Because grief is absurd as often as it is devastating.

A Final Warning

If the word “cunt” offends you, this is not your book.

If you need female characters to be pleasant, digestible, or well behaved, this is not your book.

If you believe grief should be quiet, graceful, and socially acceptable, this is definitely not your book.

But if you have ever lost someone and felt abandoned by the way the world expects you to recover…

Belle will feel familiar.

She is grieving, furious, loving, inappropriate, hilarious, shattered, and painfully real.

I wouldn’t soften her if I could.

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