For fans of Girl in Pieces, All the Bright Places, and Girl, Interrupted comes a haunting and breathtaking YA contemporary debut novel that packs a powerful message: Hope can be found in the darkness.

This program includes an author's note read by the author.

“Achingly poignant...a love letter and a life raft to the brokenhearted.” (New York Times best-selling author Alison McGhee)

Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death.

But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to reassemble. There's her mother, a songbird who wanted to break free from her oppressive cage. The boy made of brushstrokes and goofy smiles who brought color into a gray world. Her brooding father, with his sad puppy eyes and clenched fists.

Told in epistolary-like style, Rocky Callen's deeply moving A Breath Too Late sensitively examines the beautiful and terrible moments that make up a life and the possibilities that live in even the darkest of places. Perfect for fans of the critically acclaimed Speak, I’ll Give You the Sun, and If I Stay.

Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year - 2020

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

"An exquisitely played love song to life, in all of its hurts, wonders, memories, and loves." (Jeff Zentner, Morris Award-winning author of The Serpent King and Goodbye Days)