by Ann Garvin
First published 2021
Samantha Arias has not spoken to Holly Dunfee in years, and she is fine with that. Samantha sidesteps conflict whenever possible. Holly charges straight into it. The two women have nothing left in common except Katie, their college best friend of twenty-five years, who is now in the hospital fighting cancer and asking for one favor. Drive out to Utah, retrieve her diabetic Great Pyrenees from a rescue, and bring him back to Wisconsin. Oh, and the dog weighs one hundred pounds. Oh, and they will need to take the camper van that belongs to Katie's ex-husband, who will not be handing over the keys willingly. Samantha and Holly climb into that van together and head west, two thousand miles of highway between them and the dog, and a much older wound between them and each other. Somewhere along the route a minor celebrity joins the ride and scrambles the itinerary further. Ann Garvin keeps the story funny and the stakes real. The closer these two women get to bringing Katie her dog, the closer they get to the secret that ended their friendship. This is a novel about what people do for the people they love, and what it costs to finally stop running from the truth.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, womens-fiction
Vibes: character-driven, emotional, heartwarming, humorous, uplifting
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, found-family, second-chance
Setting: Utah, Wisconsin
301 pages · Paperback · Lake Union Publishing
Content warnings: terminal-illness