Bittersweet

A moving and inspirational memoir about true love, the darkness of grief—and learning how to find your way back into the light.

"A work of staggering grace."—Women's Health

"Raw, relatable, uncensored."—Jeff Brazier

"The ultimate book about what it is to be human."—Stacey Heale

"Raw, brave, deeply moving and powerful."—Angela Scanlon

From the moment Lotte first met Ben, she knew they were meant to be together. And for a few years, their life was truly idyllic: flourishing careers, adored friends, and travel to every corner of the planet.

But when Ben was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Lotte was catapulted into the uncharted landscape of cancer medicine, becoming his caregiver overnight. With the world around them in lockdown, they refused to give up the fight for his survival, travelling from London to Mexico in hope of a cure at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When Ben lost his life, many miles from home, Lotte found herself asking: how do you see what the future looks like—without the person you love most in it?

Heartfelt and heartbreaking, healing and hopeful, this intimate memoir reminds us that grief and joy can coexist, and that life after loss can still be beautiful.

“Profound pain melds with profound hope in Bittersweet, Lotte Bowser’s beautiful debut. A work of staggering grace, this book reveals Bowser’s gift for communicating both the hellish enormity of her grief alongside her capacity to reach for shards of meaning in the most agonizing of times. Sure to be a balm for those grasping for an anchor in the raw days of early loss.” —Women’s Health

“Raw, brave, deeply moving and powerful.” —Angela Scanlon

“Bittersweet is so beautifully visceral; as the reader, you feel as though you are living in the pages, your heart simultaneously bursting and breaking. This is a story tackling all the areas we hate to discuss but so desperately need to—illness, healthcare systems, death, grief—and how love is the soft embrace that will pull us through. The ultimate book about what it is to be human.” —Stacey Heale

“In this wonderful tribute, frank confession and harrowing diary of a woman navigating the unthinkable, Lotte explains her experience of losing her Ben in such a raw, relatable, uncensored style. I found myself falling in love with what she had, hating what she lost and admiring her efforts to not only find her own feet but inevitably inspire many others to find theirs too.” —Jeff Brazier

Born in London, Lotte Bowser worked in TV and film before pursuing a career as a yoga teacher, hosting classes in some of the capital’s most renowned yoga studios and offering voluntary classes for the charity Women for Refugee Women.Acting as primary caregiver to her late fiancé Ben, and navigating her way through the subsequent grief, Lotte turned to her social media platform to bring awareness to the taboo subjects of death, loss and grief, building a community of 25,000 followers.Lotte has also contributed wellbeing and lifestyle features to online publications Refinery29, Woo and Women’s Health.When she’s not writing, Lotte enjoys exercising, dancing, DJing, reading, cooking and exploring Portugal, where she now lives.

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