SHELTER ME.

Four months after her husband's death, Janie LaMarche remains undone by grief and anger. Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband--now his last gift to her.

As she reluctantly allows construction to begin, Janie clings to the familiar outpost of her sorrow--mothering her two small children with fierce protectiveness, avoiding friends and family, and stewing in rage she can't release. Yet Janie's self-imposed isolation is breached by a cast of unlikely interventionists: her chattering, ipecac-toting aunt; her bossy. over-manicured neighbor; her muffin-bearing cousin; and even Tug, the private contractor with a grief of his own.

As the porch takes shape, Janie discovers that the unknowable terrain of the future is best navigated with the help of others--even those we least expect to call on, much less learn to love.