Read the Book
Smoke: A Memoir of Rising Through Grief by Kate Fox
When Kate Fox presses the buzzer at a psychiatric hospital . . .
Grief and trauma enter with her.
The searing journey ahead will burn—but can it redeem?
After Kate lost her mother to cancer as a child, her grief rose like smoke: slow, suffocating, and silently destructive. The devastated thirteen-year-old made a deathbed promise to become the dedicated nurse her mother deserved but never received—one who followed up, offered answers, and never looked away.
At twenty-four, she has built a public-health career where she interacts with more bureaucrats than patients. But when the COVID-19 pandemic surges, Kate stands at a crossroads: transition to bedside nursing or let her broken promise consume her.
Kate braces for the long, life-threatening ICU shifts, but she could never prepare for her long-buried trauma to haunt each patient’s room.
Beneath the emotional toll of ICU work and the weight of postpartum depression, she bravely seeks help and finally understands how saving lives is a futile attempt to save herself.
Smoke is a deeply personal memoir of mental turmoil, a frontline worker battling burnout, and the steadfast heroism of showing up.
With the raw honesty of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Kate’s story of resilience and recovery is a must-read for anyone ready to transform their grief from ruin to strength.
