When Tilly Nightingale receives a call telling her there’s a birthday gift from her husband waiting for her at her local bookshop, it couldn’t come as more of a shock. Partly because she can’t remember the last time she read a book for pleasure. But mainly because Joe died five months ago. When she goes to pick up the present, Alfie, the bookshop owner, explains the 12 carefully chosen books with handwritten letters from Joe, one for each month, to help her turn the page on her first year without him. At first Tilly can’t imagine sinking into a fictional world, but Joe’s tender words convince her to try, and Tilly becomes immersed in the pages. Monthly trips to the bookstore give Tilly the comfort she craves. But as she begins to share her journey with others, her story becomes more than her own.

Rosemary Peterson has lived in Brixton, London, all her life, but everything is changing. The library where she used to work has closed. The family grocery store has become a trendy bar. And now the lido, an outdoor pool where she has swum daily since its opening, is threatened with closure by a local housing developer. Twentysomething Kate Matthews has moved to Brixton and feels desperately alone. A once promising writer, she now covers forgettable stories for her local paper. That is, until she is assigned to write about the lido’s closing. As Rosemary slowly opens up to Kate, both women are nourished and transformed in ways they never thought possible.