The Dog Year

Ann Wertz Garvin

Berkley, 2014

Agent: Jill Marr

Dr. Lucy Peterman was not built for a messy life. A well-respected surgeon whose patients rely on her warmth, compassion, and fierce support, Lucy has always worked hard and trusted in the system. She's not the sort of person who ends up in a twelve-step program after being caught stealing supplies from her hospital.

But that was Lucy before the accident, before her husband and unborn baby were ripped away from her in an instant, before her future felt like a broken promise. Caught red-handed in a senseless act that kept her demons at bay, she's faced with a choice: get some help or lose her medical license.

Now she's reluctantly sharing her deepest fears with a bunch of strangers, avoiding her loneliness by befriending a troubled girl, pinning her hopes on her husband's last gift, and getting involved with a rugged cop from her past. It's only when she is adopted by a stray mutt and moves her group to the dog park that she begins to truly bond with the ragtag dog-loving addicts, and discovers that a chaotic, unplanned life might be the sweetest of all . . .

Reviews:
“The story of a woman who had everything, lost everything, and now wants to shoplift the rest.”
Jacquelyn Mitchard, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean


“Few authors are funnier or more sympathetic than Ann Garvin, and few heroines [are] more in need of comic relief and sympathy than Dr. Lucy Peterman. The Dog Year is a kind, gentle, honest look at a woman whose life has come apart and a survivor who puts it all back together.”
Wiley CashNew York Times bestselling author of author of A Land More Kind than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy


“Hilarious, insightful, and heartbreaking... A deeply intimate story of tragedy and recovery that readers and book clubs will treasure.”
Matt Bondurant, author of The Night Swimmer and The Wettest County in the World