The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

This is a companion novel to Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which I read and enjoyed a couple of years ago.  Love Song was a recent choice for my book group, and I found it a worthwhile read. Harold's journey was to see former colleague and friend, Queenie Hennessy, who is in hospice in the north of England. This novel is her story and their story told from Queenie's perspective.
Harold sends post cards from his journey, asking Queenie to stay alive until he can arrive, and these cards become a sort of collective project for other patients in the hospice. In response, Queenie decides she will write a letter to Harold, which she plans to give him when he arrives; in it she will confess everything. Queenie's cancer prevents her from speaking but she scribbles notes and one of the volunteers is typing them out for her. 
Turns out Queenie was in love with Harold all the time and never told him, because he was married. Queenie also got to know Harold's adult son, David, and never told Harold that either. Queenie, like Harold, feels she somehow failed David and, therefore, Harold. After David's suicide, Queenie moves away to live a solitary life on the north coast of England. There she collects bits of detritus the waves leave behind and creates "sculptures" of people in her life and surrounds it with a garden. It becomes a local attraction, so people stop by and chat, but she remains essentially alone. When she is diagnosed with cancer and no longer able to care for herself, she goes into hospice and writes Harold to say she is dying.
Surprisingly, this is not a morbid book. We meet a wonderful cast of characters in the hospice--patients and staff. It is beautifully written, and there is a real surprise at the end. You may or may not like or admire Queenie, but you can't help but be intrigued by her.

There is a great interview with Rachel Joyce about writing Queenie's story in The Guardian.