The Year Of Pleasure – Elizabeth Berg

Betta Nolan is newly widowed and totally at a loss for what to do without her husband John. A neighbor gives her John’s last gift, a box of seemingly random words. Betta first takes this as a sign that John really was losing it before his death, but then she realizes that each slip of paper is a key word for one of their happy memories.

Betta notices beauty in everything around her, from green bowls to laundry on a line to an unusual color palette. And because Berg sees this beauty, so do readers.

She reconnects with her college roommates, and meets Matthew, a young man who’s searching for love but failing disasterously, and Jovani, a frustrated artist. She starts to enlist the people she meets in her dream, a store with a random but beautiful collection. As the story unfolds, Betta remembers joyful moments with John and starts to make more memories of her own.