A Moment of Grace

Six months later, at Christmas, Patrick started to write.

A Moment of Grace is the searing, tender account of Patrick’s life with Nicola and her illness, and his life after her loss. Heartbreaking, life-affirming and truly unforgettable, A Moment of Grace is one man’s journey to find life after his wife’s death.

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'A profoundly moving and impassioned account of a 28-year romance.' The Observer


‘A Moment of Grace is one of the more beautiful books I’ve read: raw, gracious, candid and true. It is about the last 13 months of Nicola’s life; from the ordinary London day she was diagnosed to the time she took her last breath. It manages to be an uplifting book about tragedy – because there is such romance in the mundanity of survival and such ferocity in the way this one little family love one another.’ British Vogue

How do you learn to live in the wake of death?

Patrick Dillon and Nicola Thorold were together for twenty-eight years. Patrick was an award-winning architect and writer and Nicola a leading figure in theatre, awarded an OBE for her contribution to the arts at London’s Roundhouse. Their two children were almost grown-up. Life was good.

And then, in May 2015, Nicola was diagnosed with leukaemia. After several rounds of treatment, a bone marrow transplant and many waves of recovery and decline, she died thirteen months after her diagnosis. Six months later, at Christmas, Patrick started to write.

A Moment of Grace is the searing, tender account of Patrick’s life with Nicola and her illness, and his life after her loss. But it is more than a story of illness and unbearable grief: it is a book of memory, of home, of family. It is a tale of the transfiguring power of love. Heartbreaking, life-affirming and truly unforgettable, A Moment of Grace is one man’s journey to find life after his wife’s death.