True, she can’t order anything through the mail for fear her dachshunds, Laverne and Shirley, will intercept and eat the contents, and she’s still carrying a few extra pounds from the birth of her kindergartener, but the rest of her life – marriage, kids, house, even her tennis game – is picture perfect.At least it is until the day her mother hands her a diet and exercise book called Look Great Naked and says, “I think your husband’s having an affair.” As the façade begins to crumble, Grace realizes that looking great naked means having nothing to hide. It’s accepting yourself exactly the way you are -- right here, right now, flaws, wrinkles, knots, bumps, lumps, bad attitude and all.

    Then again, he never imagined that a chance meeting with a lost and dying dog named Shandy would change his life forever. Step into the small Irish village of Galbally, where the unwitting Spencer stumbles headfirst into a parallel world that will test his will, sanity, and even physical well-being. Time and promise are running out. Will unnatural forces and events scare Spencer away before he can connect again with the mysterious dog? Will he find his way forward before Shandy meets her inevitable fate? Or will suspicious locals and a nefarious Dublin innkeeper force Spencer from the village before he completes his life-altering mission? Follow Spencer as he races to save a little Irish dog named Shandy. If he only realized that it is Shandy who is trying to save him...

    When his annoying accountant suggests hypnotherapy might help him sleep, Joseph accidentally discovers he can time-travel and things get a little complicated. With the help of Vinny, a local record shop owner, Mark, his old school friend, and Alexia Finch, his hypno-time-travel guru, Joe sets out to change the course of his life. He needs to get back to 1992, the year his world fell apart, the year that Amy, his sister, went missing. The only problem (apart from his clothes disappearing) is that the further back he goes the less time he gets to stay there. Can Joe master his new-found gift before time catches up with him?

    His mother has just died, he is an addicted poker player, and (hugely in debt), his real estate business is sinking, and he doesn't really like his longtime girlfriend. When he gets saddled with an abandoned dog, he doesn't think things can get worse. And then Reg the dog starts talking --and only Dave can hear him.At first Dave thinks he's gone crazy, but he soon realizes he's found his soul mate. Dave and Reg start off on a madcap adventure that will find them tangled up with the mob, involved in an illegal real estate deal, cleaning up at the poker table, and stumbling toward true love.The wisdom of Reg the dog:On couches being chewable because they are actually sausages"It's got a skin, it's got stuffing, what am I not getting here?"On entering a dangerous establishment"Actually, I've changed my mind. There's no atmosphere so menacing it can't be banished by a ham sandwich."On Dave's awful girlfriend"She wants so to be pack leader. She acts as if she's in control when you're there, you defer to her all the time. Would it not be better if she were allowed to go and form her own pack?"On neckties"Every time you put it on you end up going somewhere you don't want to. That's what I call a leash."

    Towers of wizards rise high into the air, shrouded in the mists of magical smog. Poor sleep in the alleyways, becoming deformed by pollution. Life is short for many.Throughout all of it, the cunning and dangerous members of the City Guard do their best to keep evil and crime from destroying the citizens of Dralin. Trained to fight in streets that make no sense, they keep wickedness from taking over completely.A young woman fleeing her past makes Dralin her destination. A young Guardsman with his own dark history hopes to make a difference in a city that is without hope. Are sorrow and despair their only destiny, or can love redeem them? Two young girls raised in this city learn life's hard lessons early. Will they be defeated by its evil?Underneath the city lie hidden dangers even more terrible than those that lurk in its dark streets. Ancient ruins of civilizations past still hold onto the memories of how grand they once were, while menacing creatures hope for a tasty meal to venture into their domain.The Dralin Trilogy is a dark, swords-and-sorcery fantasy series following the lives of a few unusual individuals as they desperately try to survive in the sinister city of Dralin.Dralin is a full-length novel of approximately 96,000 words, which would be about 400 printed pages.

    It was a normal Christmas Eve until Jeff Tanner's youngest son Davey snapped a turkey wishbone and made a crazy wish. Now Jeff thinks he's gone insane, because he sees strange things that no one else can - bug-eyed babies, walking teddy bears, and tiny freaks galore. What's worse, they don't like him. At all. Now Jeff has to figure out why they're angry, and quick, before his life is ruined by a million, invisible IMAGINARY FRIENDS.

    The warm, wry, and patient voice of a veterinarian father tells the heartfelt story of his young New England family enduring a moving trial of loyalty, hope, and faith after they are confronted with an unthinkable crisis.

    These are stories of hope, humor, triumph, loyalty, compassion, life and even death—but most of all, these are stories of love and the extraordinary animals who make our lives the richer for it.

    Ryan and his friend, miniature schnauzer Atticus M. Finch, would attempt to climb all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s four-thousand-foot peaks twice in one winter while raising money for charity. It was an adventure of a lifetime, leading them across hundreds of miles and deep into an enchanting but dangerous winter wonderland. At the heart of the amazing journey was the extraordinary relationship they shared, one that blurred the line between man and dog.Following Atticus is an unforgettable true saga of adventure, friendship, and the unlikeliest of family, as one remarkable animal opens the eyes and heart of a tough-as-nails newspaperman to the world’s beauty and its possibilities

    Then the romantic comedy movie adaptation starring Diane Lane and John Cusack. Now MUST LOVE DOGS is a series!"Voluptuous, sensuous, alluring and fun. Barely 40 DWF seeks special man to share starlit nights. Must love dogs."Divorced preschool teacher Sarah Hurlihy's first mistake is letting her bossy big sister write her personal ad. Her second mistake is showing up to meet her first date in more than a decade. Now she's juggling her teaching job, her big, rollicking, interfering south-of-Boston Irish family, and more men than she knows what to do with. And what's up with all these dogs that are suddenly galloping into her life?"A hilariously original tale about dating and its place in a modern woman's life." -BookPage"If Must Love Dogs is any indication of her talents, readers will hope that Claire Cook will be telling breezy summer stories from the South Shore of Massachusetts for seasons to come." -The Washington Post"A laugh-out-loud novel . . . a light and lively read for anyone who has ever tried to re-enter the dating scene or tried to 'fix up' anyone else." -Boston Herald"This utterly charming novel by Cook is a fun read, perfect for whiling away an afternoon on the beach." -Library Journal "Claire Cook's Must Love Dogs, a book that's got more giggles than soda bread has raisins." -Hartford Courant"Claire Cook (Must Love Dogs) has built a brand writing light-hearted women's fiction blending kernels of the absurd and comedic in compulsively readable combinations." -Shelf Awareness"The exuberant and charming Claire Cook is one of the sassiest and funniest creators of contemporary women's fiction." -The Times-Picayune

    . . with the help of one not-so-little dogRocky's husband Bob was just forty-two when she discovered him lying cold and lifeless on the bathroom floor . . . and Rocky's world changed forever. Quitting her job, chopping off all her hair, she leaves Massachusetts—reinventing her past and taking a job as Animal Control Warden on Peak's Island, a tiny speck off the coast of Maine and a million miles away from everything she's lost. She leaves her career as a psychologist behind, only to find friendship with a woman whose brain misfires in the most wonderful way and a young girl who is trying to disappear. Rocky, a quirky and fallible character, discovers the healing process to be agonizingly slow.But then she meets Lloyd.A large black Labrador retriever, Lloyd enters Rocky's world with a primitive arrow sticking out of his shoulder. And so begins a remarkable friendship between a wounded woman and a wounded, lovable beast. As the unraveling mystery of Lloyd's accident and missing owner leads Rocky to an archery instructor who draws her in even as she finds every reason to mistrust him, she discovers the life-altering revelation that grief can be transformed . . . and joy does exist in unexpected places.

    You know that you’re meant to be together. Then you learn what that person needs and you do it for them. I can’t imagine anything else quite so fulfilling.Chester has always wanted to become a service dog. When he fails his certification test, though, it seems like that dream might never come true—until a family adopts him to be a companion for their ten-year-old son, Gus, who has autism. But Gus acts so differently than anyone Chester has ever met. He never wants to pet Chester, and sometimes he doesn’t even want him in the room. Chester’s not sure how to help Gus since this isn’t exactly the job he trained for—but he’s determined to figure it out and show he’s the right dog for the job. Because after all, Gus is now his person.

    If only he could open the door. Nelson whimpers his final goodbye to Rascal, his canine soulmate, their paws almost touching through the heavy glass that separates them. Succumbing to the smoke, his life drifts slowly before him. Nelson was born deep in the French Alps, where his only worries were how snow could be both soft and hard and why it made the house sink. And whose turn it was to fetch the baguettes from the boulangerie. So how could puppy love be so cruel? And how ever did he find himself lost and lonely in England? His dogged wanderings eventually led him to David and his son Timothy, a young boy with autism. Life was once again full of joy. Until now, trapped in the fire, Nelson's luck has surely deserted him. But he can't die yet! He has an amazing tale to tell - and an amazing tail to tell it with. And with Rascal there to help, Nelson has no choice but to survive.

    She was one year out of college and severely depressed. Summoned by Julie's incoherent phone call, her mother raced from Ohio to New York and took her home.Psychiatrists, therapists and family tried to intervene, but nothing reached her until the day she decided to do one hopeful thing: adopt a Golden Retriever puppy she named Bunker.Dog Medicine captures in beautiful, elegiac language the anguish of depression, the slow path to recovery, and the astonishing way animals can heal even the most broken hearts and minds.

    The puppy that destroys her kitchen cabinets, bites her dates, pees on her neighbours, and bays at the moon is her worst nightmare - and her son's best friend. She tries everything to fix him - from obedience training and an animal behaviorist to puppy prozac and, well, fixing him. But nothing really works. Freddie remains strongly, exclusively, and steadfastly bad. As Mikey grows up and prepares to leave home, Paula's worst fear is that after more than thirty years of raising kids, she'll be left all alone - with Freddie. But the time Mikey graduates from high school, Freddie has howled his way into her heart - and earned a lifelong place in her empty nest.