From the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie comes this long-awaited follow up, an enchanting, beautifully crafted novel that explores a mystery only heaven can unfold

Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. As the park has changed over the years-from the Loop-the-Loop to the Pipeline Plunge-so, too, has Eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age. His days are a dul routine of work, loneliness, and regret Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his-and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is

not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your

earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: was it a heroic success or devastating failure? the answer, which comes from the most unlikely of the source, is our inspiration as a glimpse of heaven itself.