Product Description

A poignant and unforgettable tale of love, loss, and moving on . . . with the help of one not-so-little dog

Rocky'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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11913 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Released on: 2007-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061128646
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In her second novel, Sheehan switches genres from her debut historical about Sojourner Truth to a contemporary tale of grief featuring Rocky Pelligrino, a woman reeling from her husband's death. After her husband dies of a heart attack, Rocky leaves behind her career as a psychologist in the Berkshire Mountains and moves to Peak's Island, Maine, taking a job as an Animal Control Warden. Her first catch is a black Lab with an arrow lodged in his shoulder. She takes him in, searches for his owner and tries to solve the mystery behind the arrow's origin. Rocky makes a few friends-anorexic teenage neighbor Melissa and strangely attractive archery instructor Hill Johnson-and her mission takes a surprisingly dark turn after she learns of Cooper's original owners. Dog lovers will adore Sheehan's portrayal of Cooper, who, in contrast to all the human suffering, comprises the bright spot in a melancholy novel.
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About the Author

Jacqueline Sheehan, Ph.D., is a fiction writer and essayist. She is a New Englander through and through, but spent twenty years living in the western states of Oregon, California, and New Mexico doing a variety of things, including house painting, freelance photography, newspaper writing, clerking in a health food store, and directing a traveling troupe of high school puppeteers. She is currently the fiction editor for Patchwork Journal, an online journal sponsored by Patchwork Farm, an internationally based writing center. Jacqueline teaches workshops on writing and the combination of yoga and writing.

Customer Reviews

Straddles several genres
I hope that Jacqueline Sheehan has LOTS more stories and characters and novels in her. What could have been a mawkish or heavyhanded story about how to survive the death of your husband, was an artful depiction of psychological truths. A variety of parent-child relationships are overlapped and contrasted. While the characters try to manage their feelings and behaviors, the author gives them free reign, leaving room for laughter, tears, romance and shock.
I am philosophically opposed to giving any book 5 stars, but I can find nothing "wrong" with this. I loved the characters and was perfectly happy to stay up til 3 am finding out what happened to them all.
I hope this makes it to the big screen.

Loved the dog !
This bittersweet story of a widow coming to grips with her loss and her life is a truly wonderful read. The widow, a psychologist named Rocky, is described as being annoying and blunt, and I did find her behavior and method of dealing with her grief somewhat over the top. Especially for a woman trained as a psychologist. Nevertheless, readers will empathize with Rocky and fall in love with Cooper, the injured black Lab she rescues. I came to respect Rocky for her tenacity and courage, but I absolutely adored Cooper whose loyalty, devotion and intelligence grabbed me firmly by the heart. And I'm not even a dog owner. This is without a doubt the best book I've read in years.

Grief, loss, renewal and a big black dog
Grief comes in many forms and has many obsessions as people [and dogs] work though the loss of loved ones. This very special book tells a story of the helplessness of sorrow, the determination to live with/through it, and the transforming power of living with a broken heart. Broken hearts heal in amazing and simple ways. We don't ever get over the loss of a loved one, but we do manage to get used to it. This is one of those stories. You love the characters, understand them and suffer with them. And then you smile through the tears. This is a consoling and comforting as hugging a big black labrador retriever......