Gorgeous, thoughtful writing as always, but I found this book so overwhelmingly sad that it was difficult to read and I really had to force myself to finish. While meeting the technical criteria for genre Romance, this did not feel like a Romance to me and instead read like heavy LitFic. I think its because, to me, it felt like the story was about two couples: Mark and Eddy (present), and Mark and William (past) - and while one got their happy ending, the other got one of the most brutal endings imaginable. I also thought that for a book that took grief so seriously and realistically in some ways, the areas where things were tied up way too neatly really stood out. Please be aware that if grief, particularly hidden grief, is something you are sensitive to, this book may be quite triggering. I think if Id known what I was getting into it would have been a much better reading experience for me.