As bright as heaven

Summary: From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and A Bridge Across the Ocean comes a new novel set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which tells the story of a family reborn through loss and love.When her infant son dies, Pauline Bright no longer sees any reason to resist her husband's chance to inherit his uncle's prosperous business in Philadelphia. The Brights are poor tobacco farmers in the South, and their three remaining children—Evie, Maggie, and Willa—will have a better life in the city. The fact that the uncle is a mortician no longer seems to matter to Pauline.But the Brights arrive in Philadelphia just months before the city is engulfed by the Spanish flu. More people die in Philadelphia than in any other American city, and the Brights are all forever changed by their encounter with it. Youngest Willa will grow up to be a child of the Jazz Age, constantly seeking pleasure in her refusal to recognize any more pain. Eldest Evie will become a doctor, not of the body, but one of the new doctors for the mind, in her quest to understand how one can survive such tragedies. But it is the middle child, Maggie, who follows in her mother's footsteps, and discovers that it is by embracing death that she can not only survive but also seize life.

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