Synopsis

An empowering and heartfelt novel about the complexities of family, the power of sisterhood, and the bravery it takes to choose happiness when all seems lost.

“My life is perfectly fine.”

Alex has pretended this for years―despite an emotionally absent father, a best friend drifting away, and a floundering dog-training business. At least Alex has her sister, Meredith, a driven polar opposite. But both their lives are upended when their estranged mother dies of a genetic condition that the sisters have a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting. For Alex, a world without her mother is uncomfortable. But a world without Meredith is unthinkable.

Alex suggests a pact to which Meredith tentatively agrees: In three months they’ll get tested. Until then they go after everything they’ve ever wanted. Alex is finally stepping out of her comfort zone and opening herself up to new relationships. Or maybe reconnecting with an old one. Nathan, a boy who once broke her heart, needs a trainer for his mixed-breed rescue. Alex can’t resist.

As sparks rekindle, and time passes much too quickly, Alex discovers more about herself, her sister, and her mother than she ever imagined. And that everything in life―especially happiness―comes with a risk worth taking.

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Excerpt

The video. The one that changed my life right up until it didn’t.

I was a part-time dog trainer then, still trying to make that dream real. Holly and I made a video, and she stuck it up on YouTube, and then it went viral. It was a fluky kind of thing, like those things always are: the right content at the right time in front of the right people. The algorithm was alerted, and the amplification went from there. I was twenty-four and poor and bored—working a second job and involved in a fling to pass the time—and then suddenly, I was also something else. A dog whisperer, people typed. Cesar Millan but softer, with a woman’s touch. Silly. Casually sexist.

But something just the same.

After the video, it was Holly’s idea to start the training business. DogKind, we called it. I dropped my second job as copywriter to train full-time, and she did everything else—the administration and the management. The promotions. We’d both majored in marketing in college, but Holly was better at it than me. Maybe because she believed in it: the concept of brands that build trust, and colors and fonts that tell a story. It took her only two weeks to launch DogKind’s website and get us live on all the social platforms. We were still twenty-four and poor but suddenly not so bored. I remember the day the site launched—us sitting on the floor in our cramped living room, a five-dollar bottle of red between us. Stained teeth. It was summer in an attic apartment in the city, and we didn’t have air-conditioning. Holly had chopped her hair off, and we were trying to convince ourselves it was edgy.

We were young in that way you actually notice. When you’re afraid of what will happen when you blink.

Four years ago. The length of high school, or of college, but without the predetermined milestones. The signposts that tell you how and why everything is about to change.

Holly quit the business less than two years later, and I followed her lead not long after. Partly because I wasn’t making enough money to cover rent, and partly because of what happened with Cliff, one of the dogs I tried to save. But mainly because I hated being called a “dog whisperer.” I hated that people thought I could perform miracles, that they insisted on believing I was more than I was.

I work at Kensington Media now. It covers the rent, and it could one day become a real career. And I don’t have regrets. Except, there are these moments—when I see a short haircut on a blonde, when Instagram flashes up a memory of a pup—and it’s like my whole body freezes over. A little voice in my head, whispering, You can go back if you just stay still.

About the Author

Caitlin Forbes is a Maine-based author who writes stories that explore the messiness of relationships—from sisterhood to romance to the tricky relationship we have with ourselves. When not writing, you can find her chasing after her toddler (or her dog) and exploring small-town New England life.

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