What Are You Looking For Today?
Every difficult season brings its own questions. Whether you're facing divorce, spending your first Christmas alone, helping your children through change, or trying to rebuild your life after loss, there's a guide written specifically for that moment.
The Hard Days Collection isn't one book—it's a growing library of short, practical guides, each focused on one of life's most difficult days. Every guide stands completely on its own, so you only need the one that matches where you are today. Browse the collection below and choose the guide that speaks to the day you're living.
The books
In the hard days collection
Father’s Day Alone — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Father’s Day Alone
Getting Through the Day That’s Supposed to Be About You
A day that’s supposed to celebrate you specifically can somehow still feel complicated after a divorce — depending on custody arrangements, and on how you’re actually feeling about your own fathering. A short, honest guide to a day that isn’t as simple as the cards suggest.
“A day that’s supposed to celebrate you specifically can somehow still feel complicated after a divorce. Custody arrangements, distance, and how you’re actually feeling about your own fathering all shape what the day is really like.”
From the opening pages 
Meeting Your Ex’s New Partner — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Meeting Your Ex’s New Partner
Getting Through the Moment You’ve Been Dreading
Unlike the other hard days in this collection, this one rarely arrives on a schedule. It can happen in a supermarket aisle on an entirely ordinary Tuesday, with no warning at all. A short book built to be read two ways — once in advance, and again in the hours right after.
“Unlike the other hard days in this collection, this one rarely arrives on a schedule. There’s no date on the calendar, no cultural build-up, no way to book the day off work and brace for it. It can happen in a supermarket aisle on an entirely ordinary Tuesday, with no warning at all.”
From the opening pages 
Mother’s Day After Divorce — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Mother’s Day After Divorce
Helping Your Children Celebrate Their Mother, Whatever You’re Feeling Underneath
This isn’t about missing being celebrated yourself — it’s about helping your children celebrate their mother well, regardless of how the marriage ended, while managing your own complicated feelings privately underneath. A short, honest guide to a quiet, often invisible piece of fathering.
“This isn’t about missing being celebrated yourself. It’s about helping your children celebrate their mother well — regardless of how the marriage ended — while managing your own complicated feelings privately underneath.”
From the opening pages 
Moving Into an Empty House — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Moving Into an Empty House
Getting Through the First Nights in a Place That Isn’t Home Yet
The first nights in a new, half-furnished space after a marriage ends are stranger than most people expect. A short, honest guide to that specific disorientation, what to keep and what to let go of, and the slow, undramatic process of a new place actually starting to feel like home.
“The first nights in a new, half-furnished space after a marriage ends are stranger than most people expect. An unfamiliar echo when you close a door. Boxes that don’t yet know where they belong. A silence that feels louder than ordinary quiet, because it isn’t the quiet of a house at rest — it’s the quiet of a house…”
From the opening pages 
Retirement After Divorce — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Retirement After Divorce
Getting Through Two Endings That Land at the Same Time
This isn’t a book about dating again later in life — that’s covered elsewhere in this series. This one is about what happens when retirement and divorce land close together, and two major sources of identity and structure end at once rather than one at a time.
“This isn’t a book about dating again later in life — that’s covered elsewhere in this series. This one is about what happens when retirement and divorce land close together, and two major sources of identity and structure end at once rather than one at a time.”
From the opening pages 
Seeing Your Children Leave Again — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Seeing Your Children Leave Again
Getting Through the Goodbye That Keeps Happening
Every other book in this collection is about a single hard day. This one is different — it’s about a goodbye that repeats, every week or every fortnight, for years. Honest about what doesn’t fully resolve as well as what does.
“Every other book in this collection is about a single hard day — one date on the calendar, one moment to get through. This one is different. It’s about a goodbye that repeats, every week or every fortnight, for years.”
From the opening pages 
Telling Your Parents It’s Over — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Telling Your Parents It’s Over
Getting Through the Conversation You’ve Been Putting Off
Whatever your age, whatever your own independence, telling your own parents that your marriage is ending carries a particular dread unlike almost any other conversation. A short, honest guide to finding the words and getting through the day you say them.
“Whatever your age, whatever your own independence, telling your own parents that your marriage is ending carries a particular dread unlike almost any other conversation — and it doesn’t soften much with age.”
From the opening pages 
The Day You Remove Your Wedding Ring — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
The Day You Remove Your Wedding Ring
Getting Through a Small Moment That Carries More Weight Than It Should
A small piece of metal, worn so long it stops registering as something you’re wearing at all — until the day you take it off, and it turns out to carry considerably more weight than an object that size has any right to. A short, honest guide to the moment and what follows.
“A small piece of metal, worn so long it stops registering as something you’re wearing at all. Until the day you take it off — and it turns out to carry considerably more weight than an object that size has any right to.”
From the opening pages 
The Day You Sign the Papers — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
The Day You Sign the Papers
Getting Through the Moment It Becomes Official
There’s a strange gap between the emotional ending of a marriage and its legal one, and the day the paperwork is actually signed carries a weight the calendar rarely prepares you for. A short, honest guide to the morning of, the signing itself, and the tangle of relief and grief that tends to show up at once.
“There’s a strange gap between the emotional ending of a marriage and its legal one. For most people the emotional ending happened months, sometimes years, before the paperwork catches up. And yet the day the paperwork is actually signed carries a weight the calendar rarely prepares you for.”
From the opening pages 
The First Anniversary After Divorce — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
The First Anniversary After Divorce
Getting Through the Date That Used to Mean Something Else
A wedding anniversary doesn’t disappear from the calendar just because the marriage did, and the body often remembers the date before the conscious mind catches up. A short, honest guide to that strange physical recognition and what to do with it.
“A wedding anniversary doesn’t disappear from the calendar just because the marriage did. The date stays where it was, and the body often remembers it before the conscious mind catches up — a low mood on a Tuesday morning that doesn’t make sense until you glance at the date and it all lands at once.”
From the opening pages 
The First Birthday Alone — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
The First Birthday Alone
Getting Through the Day Nobody Warns You About
Birthdays don’t come with the same cultural script as Christmas or Valentine’s Day — which is exactly why the first one after a divorce catches so many people off guard. A short, honest guide to a day that arrives quieter than it should, and how to build something worth keeping inside it.
“Birthdays don’t come with the same cultural script as Christmas or Valentine’s Day. There’s no month-long run-up in the shops, no adverts aimed at what your day is supposed to look like. Which is exactly why the first one after a divorce catches so many people off guard.”
From the opening pages 
The First Christmas Alone — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
The First Christmas Alone
Getting Through the Holidays After a Separation or Divorce
Christmas is built for families and couples, which makes the first one after a separation or divorce land harder than almost any other day of the year. A short, honest guide to the specific parts that hurt most — and how to get through them without pretending the day is easy when it isn’t.
“Christmas is built for families and couples. That’s the plain truth of it, and it’s why the first one after a separation or divorce lands harder than almost any other day of the year. Every advert, every song on the radio, every window on the high street is aimed at a version of your life that doesn’t exist anymore.”
From the opening pages 
The First Wedding You Attend Alone — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
The First Wedding You Attend Alone
Getting Through a Celebration That Isn’t About You
A wedding is public, dressed-up, and deliberately celebratory — which makes attending one solo, not long after your own marriage has ended, ask something considerable of you. A short, honest guide to the invitation, the day, and the permission to leave when you need to.
“A wedding is public, dressed-up, and deliberately celebratory. Which makes attending one solo, not long after your own marriage has ended, ask something considerable of you — more than the invitation makes obvious, and more than most of the other guests will notice.”
From the opening pages 
Valentine’s Day Alone — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Valentine’s Day Alone
Getting Through the One Day That Feels Aimed at You
Valentine’s Day is aimed squarely at couples, and when you’re not one anymore the whole culture seems to lean into that fact for two solid weeks beforehand. A short, honest guide to the run-up, the day itself, and the one idea worth carrying into it: not yet is not never.
“Valentine’s Day is aimed squarely at couples. When you’re not one anymore, the whole culture seems to lean into that fact for two solid weeks beforehand. Every shop window, every advert break, every restaurant with a chalkboard outside.”
From the opening pages 
Watching Everyone Else Stay Together — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
Watching Everyone Else Stay Together
Getting Through the Quiet Comparison That Isn’t Fair to Make
This isn’t about one day — it’s about the quiet, ongoing comparison to friends whose marriages lasted, that shows up at dinner parties and ordinary weekends. A short, honest guide to why that comparison isn’t actually fair, and what to do with it.
“This isn’t about one day. It’s about the quiet, ongoing comparison to friends whose marriages lasted — the one that shows up at dinner parties and ordinary weekends, and doesn’t announce itself as grief.”
From the opening pages 
When Mutual Friends Choose Sides — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
When Mutual Friends Choose Sides
Getting Through the Friendships That Don’t Survive the Divorce
Some friendships built during a marriage belong more to the marriage than to either person individually, and a divorce can end them just as surely as it ends the relationship. A short, honest guide to the friendships that don’t make it across.
“Some friendships built during a marriage belong more to the marriage than to either person individually. A divorce can end them just as surely as it ends the relationship — sometimes with a conversation, more often with a quiet disappearance.”
From the opening pages 
When You Have to Sell the Family Home — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
When You Have to Sell the Family Home
Getting Through the Loss of the House That Held Your Life
A house is never just a building, and losing the one that held years — sometimes decades — of your actual family life deserves its own honest grief, separate from the marriage itself. A short, honest guide to that specific loss.
“A house is never just a building. Losing the one that held years — sometimes decades — of your actual family life deserves its own honest grief, separate from the grief of the marriage ending.”
From the opening pages 
When Your Ex Gets Engaged — from The Hard Days Collection Hard Days · Guide
When Your Ex Gets Engaged
Getting Through the News That Changes Nothing and Everything
News of an ex’s engagement often lands harder than people expect, even long after a divorce, even in a marriage someone was genuinely relieved to leave. A short, honest guide to why — and how to move through it without losing your footing.
“News of an ex’s engagement often lands harder than people expect. Harder than the divorce did in some cases. Harder even in marriages someone was genuinely relieved to leave. That surprise — the sheer disproportion between how you thought you’d feel and how you actually feel — is often the first thing to make sense of.”
From the opening pages