Book picks similar to
If Only I Could Talk: A Canine Adventure by Tony Lewis
dogs
animals
fiction
drama
Walking on Broken Glass
Christa Allan - 2009
But a paralyzing encounter with a can of frozen apple juice in the supermarket shatters the faCade, forcing her to admit that all is not as it appears. When her best friend gets in Leah's face about her refusal to deal with her life, Leah is forced to make an agonizing decision. Can she sacrifice what she wants to get what she needs? Joy, sadness, and pain converge, testing Leah's commitment to her marriage, her motherhood, and her faith.
Olivia
Donna Sturgeon - 2012
Born in a prison and abandoned by her mother, Olivia was raised in South Juliette by her father, Eugene—a knee-bouncing, chain-smoking loner with a Cheez Doodle addiction. Olivia drinks too much, loses her heart too easily, and works in a factory as quality control, a mundane job she’d sworn would only be temporary, not the permanent drudgery it has become. Her only joy in life comes in the form of late-night slow dances with hot bartender, George, who can set her body on fire with his kisses but is unwilling to go any further.The day Olivia accidentally backs her Buick into a black Dodge pickup, she tumbles head-over-heels into what she believes is the happily-ever-after kind of love she has been longing for. But the road to happiness is not as easy as it looks. It’s a long, winding journey of self-discovery full of potholes, pregnancy tests, lobster tattoos, Walmart scooters, impromptu weddings, hump-happy Boston terriers, and a sexy, but oh-so-annoying police officer who pops up around every curve.
Have You Seen Me?
Kate White - 2020
The key to her missing memories could bring relief—or unlock her worst nightmares.On a cold, rainy morning, finance journalist Ally Linden arrives early to work in her Manhattan office, only to find that she’s forgotten her keycard and needs to have a colleague she’s never met let her in. When her boss finally arrives, he seems surprised to see her—because she hasn’t worked there in five years.Ally knows her name, but little else, and it’s only after several hours in an emergency room and multiple interviews with the hospital psychiatrist that she begins to piece together important facts: she lives on the Upper West Side; she’s now a freelance personal finance journalist; she’s married to a lovely man named Hugh. But she still can’t recall what happened to her during the previous two days. When she learns that she’s experienced a dissociative fugue state, Ally tries to think of triggers and remembers that she’d been seeing a therapist about a traumatic event from her childhood, in which she came across evidence for a murder that was never solved.Desperate to unearth answers, Ally focuses on figuring out where she spent the missing forty-eight hours. As ominous details of the two days pile up, so does the terrifying pressure: she must recover the time she lost before the time she has left runs out.Featuring Kate White’s signature twists and turns, Have You Seen Me? is a harrowing read that will keep readers guessing until its shocking ending.
It All Comes Back to You
Beth Duke - 2018
War's over, cherry-print dresses, parking above the city lights, swing dancing.
Beautiful, seventeen-year-old Violet lives in a perfect world. Everybody loves her.
In 2012, she's still beautiful, charming, and surrounded by admirers.
Veronica "Ronni" Johnson, licensed practical nurse and aspiring writer, meets the captivating Violet in the assisted living facility where Violet requires no assistance, just lots of male attention. When she dies, she leaves Ronni a very generous bequest―only if Ronni completes a book about her life within one year. As she's drawn into the world of young Violet, Ronni is mesmerized by life in a simpler time. It's an irresistible journey filled with revelations, some of them about men Ronni knew as octogenarians at Fairfield Springs.Struggling, insecure, flailing at the keyboard, Ronni juggles her patients, a new boyfriend, and a Samsonite factory of emotional baggage as she tries to craft a manuscript before her deadline.But then the secrets start to emerge, some of them in person. And they don't stop.Everything changes.Alternating chapters between Homecoming Queen Violet in 1947 and can't-quite-find-her-crown Ronni in the present, IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU is book club fiction at its hilarious, warm, sad, outrageous, uplifting, and stunning best. In the tradition of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and Olive Kitteridge, Duke delivers an unforgettable elderly character to treasure and a young heroine to steal your heart.
Plain Jayne
Laura Drewry - 2014
Worn out from the long drive back home, Jayne Morgan can only smirk at the irony: Of course the first person she sees from her old life is Nick Scott. Once best friends, they lost touch when Jayne left town at eighteen, but nothing could keep them apart forever. Jayne has returned to take over her grandmother’s bookstore, determined to put all her bittersweet memories and secret disappointments strictly in the past — until, that is, Nick insists she bunk at his place. Nick never did care what people thought about having a girl for a best friend — or the “scandal” she caused by showing up to his wife’s funeral four years earlier — so he’s got no problem with the gossips now. Jayne was always the one person he could count on in his life. Now Nick is starting to realize that he never wants her to leave again... and that being “just friends” isn’t going to be enough anymore. Includes a special message from the editor, as well as an excerpt from another Loveswept title.
Two Rivers
T. Greenwood - 2009
Since the death of his wife, Betsy, twelve years earlier, Harper has narrowed his world to working at the local railroad and raising his daughter, Shelly, the best way he knows how. Still wracked with sorrow over the loss of his life-long love and plagued by his role in a brutal, long-ago crime, he wants only to make amends for his past mistakes.Then one fall day, a train derails in Two Rivers, and amid the wreckage Harper finds an unexpected chance at atonement. One of the survivors, a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl with mismatched eyes and skin the color of blackberries, needs a place to stay. Though filled with misgivings, Harper offers to take Maggie in. But it isn't long before he begins to suspect that Maggie's appearance in Two Rivers is not the simple case of happenstance it first appeared to be.
The Bane
Keary Taylor - 2011
It had the ability to grow new organs and limbs, to heal the world. Until it evolved out of control and spread like the common cold. The machine took over, the soul vanished, and the Bane were born. The Bane won't stop until every last person has been infected. With less than two percent of the human population left, mankind is on the brink of extinction.Eve knows the stories of the Evolution, the time before she wandered into the colony of Eden, unable to recall anything but her name. But she doesn't need memories to know this world is her reality. This is a world that is quickly losing its humanity, one Bane at a time.Fighting to keep one of the last remaining human colonies alive, Eve finds herself torn between her dedication to the colony, and the discovery of love. There is Avian and West – one a soldier, one a keeper of secrets. And in the end, Eve will make a choice that will change the future of mankind.The Bane is The Terminator meets The Walking Dead with a heart-twisting romance.Previously published as Eden, due to reader demand it has been revamped and rereleased as The Bane: book one in The Eden Trilogy.
Stray
Mark Matthews - 2010
There are voices in his head and the occasional seizure, and then his wife has a miscarriage on the same day his client dies of a heroin overdose. Tom becomes certain that the addicts he treats must have infected the womb of his wife.Lost and bitter after the miscarriage, Tom is in desperate need of a client who can give him some hope.James White is one such client -- a newly orphaned alcoholic dead bent on drinking again until he gets discharged and starts working at the Argos animal shelter. Rescuing the throw away pets of the city becomes his mission, and it is his alcoholic past that will guide him. Saving the Strays from euthanasia may be the only way he can save himself. A gritty novel with an edge yet surprisingly gentle and sweet, Stray will take you through the dog fighting dens and crack houses of Detroit where Stray souls can find connections in the most unusual of places.
Love Water Memory
Jennie Shortridge - 2013
Her memory loss is caused by an emotional trauma she knows nothing about, and only when handsome, quiet Grady Goodall arrives at the hospital does she learn she has a home, a career, and a wedding just two months away. What went wrong? Grady seems to care for her, but Lucie is no more sure of him than she is of anything. As she collects the clues of her past self, she unlocks the mystery of what happened to her. The painful secrets she uncovers could hold the key to her future—if she trusts her heart enough to guide her.
Like Mandarin
Kirsten Hubbard - 2011
True beauty is wild-girl Mandarin Ramey: 17, shameless and utterly carefree. Grace would give anything to be like Mandarin. When they're united for a project, they form an unlikely, explosive friendship, packed with nights spent skinny-dipping in the canal, liberating the town's animal-head trophies, and searching for someplace magic. Grace plays along when Mandarin suggests they run away together. Blame it on the crazy-making wildwinds plaguing their Badlands town. Because all too soon, Grace discovers Mandarin's unique beauty hides a girl who's troubled, broken, and even dangerous. And no matter how hard Grace fights to keep the magic, no friendship can withstand betrayal.
The First Day of Spring
Nancy Tucker - 2021
"That was all it took for me to feel like I had all the power in the world. One morning, one moment, one yellow-haired boy. It wasn't so much after all."Meet Chrissie... Chrissie is eight and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. The feeling made her belly fizz like soda pop. Her playmates are tearful and their mothers are terrified, keeping them locked indoors. But Chrissie rules the roost -- she's the best at wall-walking, she knows how to get free candy, and now she has a feeling of power that she never gets at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer.Twenty years later, adult Chrissie is living in hiding under a changed name. A single mother, all she wants is for her daughter to have the childhood she herself was denied. That's why the threatening phone calls are so terrifying. People are looking for them, the past is catching up, and Chrissie fears losing the only thing in this world she cares about, her child.
The Alphabet Sisters
Monica McInerney - 2004
The unbridled enthusiasm of their flamboyant grandmother Lola was the glue that held them together. As adults, though, the women haven't spoken in years - ever since Bett's fiance deserted her to marry the younger Carrie. Now Lola is turning eighty and she is determined to reunite the girls for a blowout bash. And no one ever says no to Lola.Bett, who fled to London after the scandal of losing her fiance, is hesitant to face her sisters and her hometown - especially since she has yet to find another man. Sophisticated Anna, the eldest sister, isn't too keen on the prospect either, though she's secretly grateful for any excuse to leave her crumbling marriage behind in Sydney. And Carrie, who remained in Clare Valley, is perhaps the most apprehensive. Her marriage - the nominal cause of the sisters' estrangement - is also on the rocks. Was she wrong to have followed her heart and run off with Bett's fiance?When Lola shares her special request, that the girls stage a musical she has written, their short visit becomes a much longer commitment. As they are forced to spend more time together, the sisters must confront the pain that lingers between them. Preconceptions and misunderstandings are slowly put aside and the three find themselves gradually, irresistibly enveloping one another once again - until an unexpected turn of events changes everything in ways none of them could have ever imagined. . . .Layering the lighthearted antics of small-town life with a heartbreaking story of loyalty lost and found, The Alphabet Sisters is an unforgettable story of two generations of women who learn that being true to themselves means being true to one another.
The Dress Shop of Dreams
Menna van Praag - 2014
Tucked away on a winding Cambridge street, Etta’s charming tiny store appears quite ordinary to passersby, but the colorfully vibrant racks of beaded silks, delicate laces, and jewel-toned velvets hold bewitching secrets: With just a few stitches from Etta’s needle, these gorgeous gowns have the power to free a woman’s deepest desires.Etta’s dearest wish is to work her magic on her granddaughter. Cora’s studious, unromantic eye has overlooked Walt, the shy bookseller who has been in love with her forever. Determined not to allow Cora to miss her chance at happiness, Etta sews a tiny stitch into Walt’s collar, hoping to give him the courage to confess his feelings to Cora. But magic spells—like true love—can go awry. After Walt is spurred into action, Etta realizes she’s set in motion a series of astonishing events that will transform Cora’s life in extraordinary and unexpected ways.Advance praise for The Dress Shop of Dreams “Bighearted, beautiful, and brushed with magic, this novel celebrates life’s moments of joy, possibility, and transformation. Menna van Praag’s writing is bright with sparkles and lovely grace notes.”—Susan Wiggs, bestselling author of The Beekeeper’s BallLook for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Home Stretch
Graham Norton - 2020
The day before the ceremony, a group of young friends, including the bride and groom, are involved in an accident. Three survive. Three are killed.The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them ripple throughout the small town. Connor survived, but living among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as carrying the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he eventually makes a home—of sorts—for himself in New York, where he finds shelter and the possibility of forging a new life.But the secrets—the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind—will not be silenced. Before long, Connor will have to confront his past.A powerful and timely novel of emigration and return, Home Stretch demonstrates Norton’s keen understanding of the power of stigma and secrecy—and their devastating effect on ordinary lives.
Matthew Flinders' Cat
Bryce Courtenay - 2002
Above him on the window sill rests a bronze statue of Matthew Flinders' cat, Trim. Ryan is a ten-year-old, a near street kid heading for all the usual trouble. The two meet and form an unlikely friendship. Appealing to the boy's imagination by telling him the story of the circumnavigation of Australia as seen through Trim's eyes, Billy is drawn deeply into Ryan's life and into the Sydney underworld. Over several months the two begin the mutual process of rehabilitation. Matthew Flinders' Cat is a modern-day story of a city, its crime, the plight of the homeless and the politics of greed and perversion. It is also a story of the human heart, with an enchanting glimpse into our past from the viewpoint of a famous cat.