I cannot thank Becky Hunter enough for sending me a copy of Clare Mackintosh’s latest book I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This in return for an honest review. I adore Clare’s fiction (and you’ll find my reviews of other Clare Mackintosh books here), so I was intrigued to discover I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This is non-fiction. I’m delighted to share my review of I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This today.

Published by Little Brown imprint Sphere on 7th March 2024, I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This is available for pre-order through the publisher links here.

As many of you know, I am part of the organising committee for the Deepings Literary Festival, and I’m beside myself with excitement as I’ll be interviewing Clare Mackintosh about her writing on Saturday 4th of May, so do head to the website and book a ticket to join us or to see other authors as they are selling fast!

I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This

Grief is universal, but it’s also as unique to each of us as the person we’ve lost. It can be overwhelming, exhausting, lonely, unreasonable, there when we least expect it and seemingly never-ending. Wherever you are with your grief and whoever you’re grieving for, I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This is here to support you. To tell you, until you believe it, that things will get easier.

When bestselling writer Clare Mackintosh lost her five-week-old son, she searched for help in books. All of them wanted to tell her what she should be feeling and when she should be feeling it, but the truth – as she soon found out – is that there are no neat, labelled stages for grief, or crash grief-diets to relieve us of our pain. What we need when we’re grieving is time and understanding. With 18 short assurances that are full of compassion – drawn from Clare’s experiences of losing her son and her father – I Promise it Won’t Always Hurt Like This is the book she needed then.

My Review of I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This

A book offering 18 assurances about dealing with grief.

If I say that I had tears in my eyes simply reading the introduction to I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This, you’ll understand what an important, impactful and inspirational book it is. I simply could not have adored, or needed, it more. 

I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This is divided into 18 chapters, or rather, promises that can be read as I did in the order they are presented, or dipped into. Even reading the chapter headings, presented as they are like a poem, is like finding a life raft when you’ve been adrift in a sea of grief. 

There’s enormous impact in Clare Mackintosh’s honest, raw and self aware writing. She does not spare herself her emotions of grief, rage and joy even when they feel at odds with how the world might view her. Because she addresses the reader directly using the pronoun ‘you’ and because she has lived the very depths of personal grief, I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This is utterly convincing, sensitively written and intimate. I can genuinely envisage it providing such strength and understanding to a grieving person that it might actually save their life.

Through sharing her grief about her son Alex, Clare Mackintosh gives the reader permission to claim their own grief in whatever way that manifests itself and for whatever length of time it takes. This might be a book about grief, but it is equally a magnificent book about humanity, hope and kindness and one that I feel privileged to have read. Again, I couldn’t have loved it more. 

I found I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This relatable, cathartic and terribly, terribly moving. I cried for Clare, for Alex, and not just for those I’ve lost, but for the state of the world, identifying a grief I hadn’t realised I was harbouring. Through Clare’s honesty and pain I have come to a greater understanding of myself as well as those around me – especially my niece and her husband whose daughter Emma Faith died just 90 minutes before birth at full term and who would have been celebrating her 8th birthday this month. I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This feels like a tribute to them all and I thank Clare Mackintosh for it. 

Don’t buy a copy of this book. Buy several and press them into the hands of those you love and into the hands of complete strangers. Leave copies in places they will be found by people you’ll never meet. They may not need its wisdom, its humanity and its kindness right now, but someday I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This WILL be the very thing they need at that very moment. Make sure it’s waiting for them when they are ready to read it. It’s a wonderful, wonderful book.

About Clare Mackintosh

Clare Mackintosh is a police officer turned crime writer, and the multi-award-winning author of six Sunday Times bestselling novels. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide and have spent a combined total of sixty-eight weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller chart. Clare lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.

For further information visit Clare’s website, follow Clare on Twitter/X @ClareMackint0sh or find her on Facebook and Instagram.