The Next Thing You Know: A Novel

Written by Jessica Strawser

Narrated by Christa Lewis

A musician facing the untimely end of his career. An end-of-life doula with everything, and nothing, to lose. A Star Is Born meets Me Before You in this powerful novel by the author of A Million Reasons Why.

"Unflinching and unforgettable, this one will crack your heart open and slowly stitch it back together.” —Christina McDonald, bestselling author of The Night Olivia Fell


As an end-of-life doula, Nova Huston’s job—her calling, her purpose, her life—is to help terminally ill people make peace with their impending death. Unlike her business partner, who swears by her system of checklists, free-spirited Nova doesn’t shy away from difficult clients: the ones who are heartbreakingly young, or prickly, or desperate for a caregiver or companion.

When Mason Shaylor shows up at her door, Nova doesn’t recognize him as the indie-favorite singer-songwriter who recently vanished from the public eye. She knows only what he’s told her: That life as he knows it is over. His deteriorating condition makes playing his guitar physically impossible—as far as Mason is concerned, he might as well be dead already.

Except he doesn’t know how to say goodbye.

Helping him is Nova’s biggest challenge yet. She knows she should keep clients at arm’s length. But she and Mason have more in common than anyone could guess… and meeting him might turn out to be the hardest, best thing that’s ever happened to them both.

Jessica Strawser's The Next Thing You Know is an emotional, resonant story about the power of human connection, love when you least expect it, hope against the odds, and what it really takes to live life with no regrets.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Mar 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781250837752

Jessica Strawser

JESSICA STRAWSER (she/her) is the author of the book club favorites Almost Missed You, Not That I Could Tell (a Book of the Month selection), Forget You Know Me, and A Million Reasons Why. She is Editor-at-Large for Writer’s Digest, and her work has appeared in The New York Times' Modern Love, Publishers Weekly, and other fine venues. She lives with her husband and two children in Cincinnati.

Reviews for The Next Thing You Know

[Emily Lassiter Branch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a story about the many forms of love and death. It takes the form of the story of Mason, a musician, and Nova, the end-of-life doula whose help he enlists. I don't usually like to include information from a book's cover information when writing a review, but in this case that info is just too accurate to skip: this is a book about "the power of human connection, love when you least expect it, hope against the odds, and what it really takes to live life with no regrets."
It isn't just about romantic love - there's the love between parent and child (Nova's partner and her adolescent daughter, as well as Nova and her mother). There's love between siblings and love between friends. And there's also the love of one's life and career. And types of death? There's physical death, of course - that's what an end-of-life doula deals with. But there's also the death of a beloved career, the death of the life one always planned for, essentially the idea that life is what's happening while we're making plans and how much of life is making adjustments to the changes that inevitably arise. Like life itself, this book is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and it's left me wanting to try some of Jessica's Strawser's other books.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing a copy for an unbiased review.