The Despair of Strangers - Heather Topham Wood

The Despair of Strangers

The Despair of Strangers
  • Heather Topham Wood
  • Fiction
  • Romance
  • 09-Mar-2021

I don’t know how to do this without you anymore…

The text message wasn’t meant for Alyssa. After ending her engagement to a liar and cheater, she left everything behind, moving into a new apartment and changing her number. She didn’t expect to feel the words reach inside her, picking at scars never likely to heal.

I miss everything about you and I won’t move on. I can’t move on…

The messages kept coming, telling a story of loss that made Alyssa’s pain feel small. When she answered the texts, she formed a bond with Derek. Derek who was not writing to Alyssa at all, but trying to deal with his grief by sending messages to his dead fiancĂ©e.

All day today I was surrounded by people and I felt absolutely empty. Like when you went away, you took all of me with you….

Derek and Alyssa became friends first, then something more developed—a connection that felt like love, but one that left them both scared, uncertain of second chances. Alyssa wanted a future with Derek, but she wondered when Emily’s ghost would finally let him go.

Heather Topham Wood

Heather Topham Wood's obsession with novels began in childhood while growing up in a shore town in New Jersey. Writing since her teens, she recently returned to penning novels after a successful career as a freelance writer. She's the author of the paranormal romance Second Sight series and the standalones Falling for Autumn and The Disappearing Girl.