Content warnings: death of people of all ages, grief, Covid, mention of post-mortem, body horror, terminal illness, miscarriage, stillbirth

In this book the reader is taken on a journey through a year of the author working in a major hospitals mortuary. During the course of this book, Marshall weaves interesting stories about people that have died and those who grieve them with an over-arching message about living life not fearing death.

This book definitely left me sobbing multiple times - I was especially not expecting the stories about miscarriages and babies who have died - but there are also quite a number of funny anecdotes. Every single story is told with the utmost respect and there is definitely a feeling of celebrating and remembering those who have died.

This is definitely the kind of book that you need to be in a good headspace to read but the author and their ghost-writer are clearly excellent story tellers which is definitely needed in the kind of book that this is.

“Sorry For Your Loss: What Working with the Dead Taught Me About Life,” by Kate Marshall with Linda Watson-Brown (ISBN: 9781914451560, Publication Date: 21 Jul 2022), earns two stars.

The book is a memoir, a series of recollections and reflections, really on death and the living by a person working in a British hospital mortuary. Frankly, I’m not sure what I expected when I selected this book to read, and having read it, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I thought perhaps that the book might reveal an epiphany or two, but that was not to be. Instead, many of the anecdotes brought back memories from my days working in hospitals, recalling how the staff cared for the patients, the deceased, and their families. Apart from that, I thought the book spent too much time of the macabre.

Thanks to the publisher, Mardle, for granting this reviewer this opportunity to read this Advance Reader Copy (ARC), and thanks to NetGalley for helping to make that possible.

Very repetitive. It needed a good editor. Its an interesting read though so I would still recommend it.

Sorry for your Loss is the diary of a mortuary worker, starting in 2019 and continuing through the pandemic, detailing the ins and outs of a job so few people give thought to until they lose someone they love. The book seeks to normalise conversations about death, to demystify the protocols around what happens when we die and to provide interesting stories of the people and personalities that come through the doors of the mortuary - both living and dead. I enjoyed the book but struggled with the style of writing - flitting from one story to the next, repetitive at times and skimming over the more emotional and evocative things. I feel the use of a ghost writer is to the detriment of this novel, and would love to hear Kate Marshall speak in person as I'm sure she tells these tales with far more verve. She certainly comes across as a fascinating, kind and lovely lady with plenty to say, but the scattergun approach to the storytelling does her no favours.

This was OK but I have read that many like it that I didn't really find anything different. It was not a bad book though, interesting stories and some funny, some sad and a good message behind the book.

Have you ever wondered what happens when a loved one passes and before they go to a funeral home? Sorry For Your Loss gives a firsthand report of what comes next.

Opened my eyes into a different aspect of afterlife care. I find mortuary related services to be very interesting. Explains the processes for managing all ages, religions and types of death. Includes stories of bizarre encounters with families, heartbreaking goodbyes and struggles.

I would say this reads like a blog or conversation with a friend more than your average book. At times, I found it to be a bit repetitive. The author explains how she got into this profession and why she enjoys it.

All handled with utmost respect without being macabre or gruesome.


First hand look at COVID 19 deaths. The book is written in chapters with dates going right into early 2020 when Covid hit. The author explains how it started as nothing and became a life changing event.

I think this book and others like it are good for everyone to read. Death doesn’t have to be scary. It is nice to know that our loved ones are treated with respect and care.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this book. I have written this review voluntarily.

This was a very unusual book for me to pick - it fascinated me to hear about Katie and her job in the mortuary. A fantastic insight of the job and the trials and tribulations she experienced on a day to day basis, Katie seems such a wonderful caring and compassionate person who obviously loved the job and cared for the deceased and their relatives. At times I held my breath with emotion, how she had to deal with difficult relations and the things she was asked to do and yet she still showed great compassion. The last few chapters that dealt with covid just reinforced how difficult peoples jobs were and yet the expectations and pressure placed on them when they had such despair and exhaustion themselves was hard to not feel great sadness. I felt this was a very emotional read but told with such great skill that it truly gave you an insight as to what an important job the mortuary plays in our final journey of life.

A generous and heartfelt tale of life working in a hospital mortuary. I found it entirely fascinating!

From young to old each of us will one day end up in the basement of a hospital but what actually is involved in caring for the dead. This book tells of the card and compassion provided to those who have died and who loved them.

Sad in parts and humorous in others. The dead become people again when the stories of their lives are told by those that visit them or indeed when they have no-one.

From dealing with mortuary worker wannabes and the insta generation to the ladies who make tiny bassinets for babies from ice cream tubs and knit tiny clothes. A truly honest account of care after death.

I really enjoy reading books about mortuaries - especially memoirs. It's always really fascinating to see what sort of jobs people do, what are the working hazards, what's the emotional toll for working so close to death... I liked most of this book but I would've liked it more if it wasn't so repetitive. We learn that Muslims need a fast burial, the Irish are rather cheerful when staring at death, the moms who have lost their babies can dress their dead child (which I found to be really morbid). Then we read about these exacts topics again, and again, and again. There's nothing new added to them they're just repeated over and over - which gets tedious. I think the book needs to be edited and tightened up for an enjoyable reading experience.

The hospital mortuary is not a place we think about when we think about care of our loved ones.
But Marshall - a mortuary worker - is someone who is there for us at the saddest times.
In this touching memoir she writes about the sorriest of circumstances: bereaved parents, unclaimed dead, suicides, but she does so with compassion.
We learn that death is very much part of the everyday, but that our dead should still be afforded the respect and love they deserve.
There are touches that break your heart: elderly ladies knitting and decorating ice cream tubs to look like tiny exquisite cots for pre-term babies who have died.
You really feel for Marshall - she has to move the heaviest bodies to accommodate new arrivals: a job the porters don’t want to do. And her writing on the pandemic is so sad as she and her colleagues struggle to provide the space and care needed, although relatives are no longer allowed into the mortuary to be with their family members.
Marshall is not afraid to give her own opinions and judgements but that makes for an authentic voice.
Recommended: a heartfelt and heartening glimpse into a world few of us see or acknowledge.

A completely fascinating account of the author’s first year working in the mortuary of a large NHS hospital.
The author comes across as completely dedicated to her job and, should you be unfortunate enough to have to visit a loved one in a mortuary, you would absolutely hope that Kate, or someone very like her, is on hand both to meet you and care for your loved one – because they may have passed but there’s no mistaking the author’s genuine desire that the deceased are treated with dignity and respect.

The tales within the book vary from incredibly sad (as you might expect) but also sometimes unexpectedly amusing (as long as dark humour is your thing!). Some people turn up at the mortuary viewing room obviously devastated by their loss, whereas others are hoping merely to inherit something from the deceased.
A truly informative book, I would definitely recommend it to almost anyone – because one thing we can guarantee in life is that we’ll have to deal with death and this book should help with that.

My only slight reservation is that the author is keen to appear entirely non-judgemental but when one husband asks for a piece of his wife’s body jewellery (admittedly an unusual piece) and also asks for her to be dressed in a very particular way in the coffin, the author is actually unnecessarily judgemental about this I felt – she offered the husband the wife’s earrings but then was horrified by the jewellery he actually wanted. Well, why? They were partners in life – if he could have the earrings he should’ve have been welcome to the other body jewellery too. And if you can ask for the body to be dressed, why shouldn’t someone ask for it to be dressed in clothes the deceased may have loved to wear in life? Bits were also slightly repetitive but not enough to spoil the book.

I love reading about this topic, it's not something you hear a lot about. The writing was easy to get into and I loved reading about all these different experiences with the dead.

Really enjoyed reading this book and I would definitely recommend this if this is something you are interested in.

I also recommend this for people who work in healthcare, it seems like a lot of people forget this is part of the system too and it's really underrated. It really warmed my heart how much care is taken of the dead and their family.

I have always been interested in books about death and was really looking forward to this one; unfortunately it did miss the mark for me. The tone of the book reads quite well - a bit like a conversation; it feels casual but warm, and I liked the author - if I ever have to visit a loved one in a mortuary, I would hope to meet someone like her. But the book overall lacked dynamism and structure, it felt like a catalogue of dead people and anecdotes rather than a more structured commentary - despite intelligent remarks on the cost of funeral, grief and Covid.

This was such an eye opener into the medical mortuary world. It gave me a look into Kate’s everyday work in a hospital mortuary. It shows the horror, heartache, and heart-warming moments (I actually laughed at some parts). Definitely worth a read!

I really enjoyed this book. The author has a very conversational style and quite the story to tell. I would be able to sit and read her stories all day. Highly recommend this one!

I loved this memoir! Kate has a lovely style of writing and it is just like sitting with her while she reminisces, the book sometimes following a thought all the way through to the end but sometimes like a butterfly hopping from memory to memory, a piece of wisdom to a fact about how things work in the mortuary of an English hospital.
I am the same age as Kate with similarly aged children and my thoughts have turned more to my death since Covid has come to town. My parents have also aged rapidly over the last few years and how I honour them in death, mixing their wishes with my own is very poignant. Kate is absolutely correct when she says we need to talk about death more in our culture and normalise it. It has just occurred to me that while I have full funeral instructions for one of my parents, the other hasn’t even mentioned whether they want to be buried or cremated.
When we clapped for the NHS we didn’t think about Kate and her team, after all who thinks about mortuaries at all unless they are forced to, but this book has integrated them (in my mind) into the grand machine that is the NHS: a cog no smaller and less significant than nurses, doctors or any of the other health service staff.

Having read and not rated particularly highly, another hospital memoir that covers the period of the height of the pandemic I totally recommend this one to anyone and everyone.

Special thank you to Ad Lib Publishers, Mardle Books and Net Galley for allowing me to read and review this digital ARC of Sorry For Your Loss

Being in the medical field myself, I was very intrigued by this book. and boy was it an eye-opening and very fascinating read! This book is told from behind the scenes at a mortuary and written in diary format. I loved her anecdotes even though she does not work as the mortician. If you like Dr G Medical examiner you'll really enjoy this one!

A great read. I love learning what goes on behind the scenes and really enjoy these sorts of memoirs.

A memoir about working in a hospital mortuary, the people she meets (dead and alive), and how people deal with death. This was really interesting, a lot of good stories about how differently people grieve and how the mortuary handles different types of deaths. It read as more a bunch of anecdotes strung together rather than a cohesive memoir with a nice flow. I liked it though. 3 stars.

I think it was the sub title of the book or byline of the book “What working with the dead taught me about life” is what really caught my attention and made me want to learn more about the book.

Kate tells quite a few different stories of those whose bodies she dealt with and their relatives. As well as the differences, be it the age of the person who died, or the circumstances of how that person died and the effect it had on those mourning them, and the different way people mourn too.

The book really is an emotional read and I identified with some of the different families, through the different loved ones they lost and how they each decided how to handle that loss and the family customs, traditions and rituals they chose to do.

One story Kate tells is “Keith” a man who had lots and lots of tattoos of all the people he loved in his life. It made me both smile and tear up, when Kate revealed that Keith’s son had decided a tattoo of his dad on his arm would be a special thing to do and he proudly shows it to Kate. He has chosen to carry on the tradition his father’s tattoo, through beginning to have tattoos himself and the very first one being one of his Dad, to honour his memory.
I teared up at the losses of babies and the stories Kate told about them.

Kate explains in the book how she and the team she works with handle some of the things we don’t see when we visit our loved ones after they have died. There is no awful gory detail, Kate is very sensitive, matter of fact and I think truthful about what happens behind the scenes.

There were even points in the book when I laughed out loud, the strange things people want that belonged to their loved one. Who on earth would want their dead relatives false teeth, what on earth are they going to do with them. Kate then shares that there will be items like perhaps a handkerchief that still has the perfume/aftershave of the dead person still on it and she has asked relatives if they would like to take it away with them and they have just waved the offer away saying to just throw it away! Then she mentions what I would describe as the one-up-manship behaviour, who loved the person the most etc etc. Death really does seem to bring out the worst in some people! Some of the questions that Kate have been asked

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book really sum up what I thought to the book. It really honestly was a quite fascinating, original look and description of Kate’s everyday work in a hospital mortuary. It mentions the horror, heartache, and heart-warming moments within Kates jobs. The book also includes how covid created even more heartbreak when loved ones were not allowed to say their final farewells to loved ones either before they died or afterwards in a chapel of rest. All the restrictions and new rules for handling the bodies of those who had covid meant much more extra work as well as more chaos for those working in the mortuary.

An eye-opening and fascinating read.

This book takes you behind the scenes at a mortuary in a Northern Teaching Hospital. The author isn't a pathologist; she doesn't do postmortems-she assists behind the scenes-e.g. with family viewings of bodies, removing pacemakers etc. The book is a month by month account, e.g. May 2019, June 2019, July 2019, August 2019 etc., which suits me as I like diary format.

Firstly she talks about working as a hoarder clearer. Some disgusting tales from there! I've seen the tv programme A Life of Grime with these sorts of scenarios, so it's interesting to read about someone who has worked in these circumstances. I also love watching things like Dr G Medical Examiner- and had been wanting to read a memoir of this type. This was very quick to read, riveting from the outset, and at times unbelievably disgusting. Things you just wouldn't imagine people do. Many yukky moments- but in a good way as this was all fascinating to read about.

A great read. I love learning what goes on behind the scenes and really enjoy these sorts of memoirs.