TYPORAMA
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Offers a new take on grief and the death of a loved one: not merely as a loss experienced by others but also as an anticipatory grief of a mother who doesn’t want to miss out on a single moment of her daughters’ lives. And yet.
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August 2026
Lake Union Publishing
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PRAISE FOR WHEN SHE WAS OURS:
"Beautifully told, this deeply moving story about mothers and daughters, grief and memory will resonate with anyone who has ever looked at their mother and thought, but how will I go on without you?"
—Nicola Kraus, #1 NYT Bestselling author of The Nanny Diaries and The Best We Could Hope For
"When She Was Ours is an affecting debut about the fault lines that run through families and the resilience that emerges when they’re exposed. Nordberg writes with clarity and compassion about the secrets that shape a family as she traces a mother’s final choices and the long shadow they cast on her daughters. The result is an insightful and gripping story about grief, forgiveness, and the stubborn love that binds us, even when it hurts."—Jacqueline Friedland, USA Today bestselling author of He Gets that From Me and Counting Backwards
“When She Was Ours is a spellbinding portrait of love in its fiercest and most fragile forms: between partners, between sisters, and above all, between mothers and daughters. I read with my heart in my throat, swept away by Nordberg’s deeply human characters and their quest for wholeness in the wake of loss and rupture. An unforgettable tale by a brilliant magician of a storyteller.” ―Nicole Graev Lipson, USA Today bestselling author of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters
“When She Was Ours is a thoughtful, quietly powerful novel that lingers long after the final page. It’s the kind of book that makes you reflect on your own relationships, and maybe even see them a little differently.” ―Leah Tran, LA Book Review
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ABOUT WHEN SHE WAS OURS:
Thea Erickson, a renowned surgeon, is filled with both joy and grief as her family gathers at their home on a summer night in 1995. Her elder daughter Phoebe is getting married, but even the happiness of the day feels bittersweet, as Thea grapples with a terminal cancer diagnosis. She worries she won’t be around to support her younger daughter Astra, who’s still in college, but even Thea cannot foresee what is to come―a terrible accident the night of the wedding that changes Astra’s life forever.
In a last-ditch effort to protect her family, Thea arranges a secret meeting with an old family friend and extracts a promise that will reverberate long after she’s gone.
Years after her mother’s death, Astra has moved forward with a career and relationship, but she still struggles with her grief. When a man reaches out to her and Phoebe, offering a window into their mother’s past, Astra must make a choice, and her decision forces her to face what it means to love someone after they’re gone, who we decide to forgive, and how families reckon with the past.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
