Blue Hour Homecoming

By Alle Mudrick

How do we continue to live after unfathomable loss? This memoir takes a situation that most find incomprehensible—life after the death of a child—and turns it into universal wisdom on how to live whatever life you've been given.

Alle Mudrick had dreamt of pregnant bellies and breathless birth photos since she was a little girl. But when her first daughter died at birth and her next two pregnancies ended in miscarriage, she suddenly found herself on the fringes of reproduction, questioning how she could possibly live after such extreme loss. Caught in the painful reality that childbearing is fraught with difficulty, but her own survival seemed to depend on having a living child, Alle forged ahead in pursuit of her dreams—a journey that would bring her even further into reproductive trauma and challenge everything she thought she knew about life, death, and love.

An intimate and moving memoir, Blue Hour Homecoming is one woman’s story of how venturing to the edges of life and back can be wild and beautiful, if only we are brave enough to go there.

ISBN: 979-8-9912123-0-4

8.5” x 5.5” | 330 pages

$19.00

Available in paperback and ebook

COMING MARCH 25:

Praise for the book

“I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that there is a passage in this memoir that changed my view of everything: life, its meaning, and how I think about love. Alle has articulated emotions I've been unable to put words to for myself, and she's done it in a way that left me feeling bigger and more alive when I put the book down. This true story of unbearable loss brims with hope. I want to give it to every mother I know.”

—Mary Adkins, author of You Might Feel a Little Pressure

“The glory and rawness of this book shocked and held me. Blue Hour Homecoming is a gorgeous, technicolor, lyrical journey through loss, longing, and the hidden spaces of life. With tender yet unflinching prose, Mudrick explores the delicate balance between fertility and identity, finding meaning in the margins. This collection invites readers into the quiet, overlooked corners of the body and soul, offering a poignant meditation on how home can be found in the unexpected. This book is poetry in motion.”

—Mira Ptacin, author of Poor Your Soul

“In this chronicle of one woman’s journey to motherhood outside the womb, Mudrick has gifted us with the spectrum of existence: this is a story of life, death, and the particular human condition that is surviving both at the same time. Raw, courageous, feminist, and feisty, this memoir is a must-read for everyone who mothers.” 

—Courtney Maum, author of The Year of the Horses

“Blue Hour Homecoming is a memoir that lays bare the realities of grief—the way it swells and recedes and swells. Mudrick invites the reader into her story with incredible vulnerability and masterful tenderness. In her own words, she shows us the infinitely complex experience of ‘loving and hurting with abandon,’ and through elegant prose illustrates the clarity of memory cemented by trauma and loss—how our most painful memories often live most vividly in our minds.”

—Brittany Means, author of Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways 

“A breathtaking, beautifully impressionistic narrative of the deepest love, and what it takes to birth yourself as a mother.” 

—Sarah DiGregorio, author of Early

“This book is a must-read for anyone who has been through loss. With the intimacy and candidness of a good friend, Alle Mudrick turns grief inside out and bares all of its truth: its enormity, its devastation, but also its capacity for light and growth. You will feel yourself right alongside Mudrick on her journey through life after loss—unwittingly caring for your own wounds along the way.” 

—Annie Sklaver Orenstein, author of Always a Sibling

“A beautiful, breathless read. A wise and luminous meditation on womanhood, Blue Hour Homecoming offers up the surprising generosity of heartbreak—the way it carves space for transformation and resilience.  A powerhouse-read for anyone who has faced the fragility of reproduction, wrestled with the ache of absence, or understood what it means to carry both life and grief in the same breath.” 

—Joselin Linder, author of The Family Gene

“‘These conversations save lives,’ Alle Mudrick writes when she finds the words to tell her story to a co-worker who shares a similar tale of loss and hardship. And so they do, in this brave, honest and generous memoir. Blue Hour Homecoming is the kind of book that helps you know you are not alone, and that any kind of loss and love you have ever felt as a woman or mother is one you have shared with a legion of others. Mudrick's essential gift is to hold your hand while she tells not only her story but yours. Her words will heal long after the reading is done.” 

—Vicki Forman, author of This Lovely Life

“Blue Hour Homecoming is a gripping, realistic, and unflinchingly raw exploration of grief, life, trauma, and hope. Mudrick unveils the stark realities of living through loss, high-risk pregnancies, prematurity, and the complexities of preemie parenting—offering an honoring glimpse into what it means to fight for your children and for yourself, while powerfully validating experiences too often endured in silence.” 

—Parijat Deshpande, author of Pregnancy Brain and founder of Ruvelle

“Mudrick's journey through conception, pregnancy, birth, loss, and beyond reads like tea with a friend. Those of us who know the same peril and longing will see echoes of their own experiences, and feel the encouragement women offer to one another to mend, love, and find light in whatever way we can.” 

—Kate Inglis, author of Notes for the Everlost