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In this poignant, funny, and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs—a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family.

There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things.

What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?

The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed.

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family.

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.

If you’ve ever owned a dog that wasn’t quite perfect, that had issues that you struggled to overcome, a dog you loved, anyway, then this is the book for you. The author brings his dogs to life with every challenge met, but not always won, with every illness that you’re sure will be the end, but magically isn’t. Until it is.

Even though I was reading about someone else’s dogs, I couldn’t help but think of my own, some gone decades, others only a few years. They all were right there with me, as I’m sure Zusak’s still are with him. We love them so much, yet know that we will lose them much too soon.

I laughed at some of the situations that Zusak found himself in with Reuben and Archer. Cried when the inevitable happened. He now has Frosty, but admits that the kind of love that comes with years isn’t there yet. But he knows it will be someday. I know that feeling; that’s what a dog, or a cat, bring to their people. As is so evident in this book, no matter the pain at the end, they’re more than worth it.

( Mount TBR 2025 Book Links 1-20 )

21. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
22. America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War by H.W. Brands
23. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
24. The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
25. A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen
26. Lost and Found by Marilyn Harris
27. Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill
28. Three Wild Dogs by Markus Zusak

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gilda_elise

A collection of four chilling novels, ingeniously wrought gems of terror from the brilliantly imaginative, Joe Hill

Snapshot is the disturbing story of a Silicon Valley adolescent who finds himself threatened by “The Phoenician,” a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that erases memories, snap by snap.

A young man takes to the skies to experience his first parachute jump. . . and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero’s island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own in Aloft.

On a seemingly ordinary day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails—splinters of bright crystal that shred the skin of anyone not safely under cover. Rain explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as the deluge of nails spreads out across the country and around the world.

In Loaded, a mall security guard in a coastal Florida town courageously stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun rights movement. But under the glare of the spotlights, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. When an out-of-control summer blaze approaches the town, he will reach for the gun again and embark on one last day of reckoning.

I’m loving Joe Hill’s work almost as much as his father’s (which he probably hates hearing.) I’ll read anything he writes. Haven’t been disappointed yet. Certainly not with this collection. I especially like that they’re more novellas than short stories. And while they tend to veer more toward science fiction, they all have touches of horror.

As I see them:

Snapshot: Creepy and horrifying, yet bittersweet, too, as the protagonist finds love in the most unexpected place. I was hoping for a different ending, but things don’t always work out the way we want. No matter my feelings about it, it made sense.

Loaded: Watching as, step by step, the inevitable happens. Terrifying how likely something like this could happen. Actually, may have already happened. I hated the ending, though.

Aloft: A unique story, more sci-fi than horror. I loved how the young man works out as to what’s going on, and how to deal with it.

Rain: Another more sci-fi than horror, though horrifying enough. I loved the main protagonist; she could definitely take care of herself, though a little help is always welcome. Didn’t see the ending to this one coming. I think it was my favorite story of the four.

gilda_elise

On Christmas Eve, 1930, in America's dust bowl, a young woman delivers her baby alone. Plain, warmhearted Martha Drusso takes the downy-haired infant she names Belle to raise as her own, along with another orphan in her care, a little boy named R.C.

But when Belle is three, her stepbrother mistakenly puts her on a train bound for Los Angeles, then leaves to get her a treat. The train takes off, and Belle is pitched into a child's worst nightmare: a series of orphanages and foster homes. When she is adopted into a loving Japanese-American family, it seems Belle's troubles are over -- until World War II breaks out. Never defeated, Belle is adopted again, and her beautiful singing voice ultimately leads her to Hollywood, and to love and marriage.

All the while, Martha and R.C. steadfastly continue to search for Belle. For thirty years they believe that the persistence of their hearts will bring their little family together again . . . .

"The power and integrity of Harris's prose turn this novel into something valuable." -- Atlanta Journal & Constitution

The book has a lot going for it. An intriguing plot, some interesting characters, and the background of a changing America.

Martha and R. C. are especially appealing. Their lives are often hard, but they manage to overcome adversity and carry on. They enjoy what they have, yet always in the background is Belle, the lost child.

Unfortunately, that’s where things go off the rails. Belle is too perfect. She’s beautiful, and has a voice like an angel. She’s brilliant, but her naivety, which I suppose is supposed to show the pureness of her heart, can be a bit much sometimes. She overlooks, and I guess the reader is supposed to, too, the manipulative and insensitive nature of her boyfriend’s father. What would happen next was pretty obvious. And kind of creepy.

I think the book could have done without the last ten years. At that point the story started to get redundant, as they almost find each other, their paths almost crossing.

The ending left me wondering if there was going to be more to Belle and R.C.’s relationship. Not sure how I would have felt about that.

MAY – Lost, City, Wind, Hide, Lie, Fan, Room, Clear

Lost and Found by Marilyn Harris
⁠

gilda_elise

How do you start over after the end of the world?

Six years after a global pandemic wiped out most of the planet’s population, the survivors are rebuilding the country, split between self-governing cities, hippie communes and wasteland gangs.

In post-apocalyptic San Francisco, former pop star Moira has created a new identity to finally escape her past—until her domineering father launches a sweeping public search to track her down. Desperate for a fresh start herself, jaded event planner Krista navigates the world on behalf of those too traumatized to go outside, determined to help everyone move on—even if they don’t want to. Rob survived the catastrophe with his daughter, Sunny, but lost his wife. When strict government rules threaten to separate parent and child, Rob needs to prove himself worthy in the city’s eyes by connecting with people again.

Krista, Moira, Rob and Sunny are brought together by circumstance, and their lives begin to twine together. But when reports of another outbreak throw the fragile society into panic, the friends are forced to finally face everything that came before—and everything they still stand to lose.

Because sometimes having one person is enough to keep the world going.

This is a truly different take on what goes on after a global pandemic; probably not since Alas, Babylon, has a book focused so much on, not how people got there, but where do they go from here. Yes, the pandemic is important, since it set the stage for what was to come. But people lives must go on.

All four characters are well drawn, though Sunny probably not as much as the grownups, since there is less history to draw from. Yet, at the same time, she is very much in the center of what is going on with the three people within her orbit. So while Sunny’s character changes very little, Krista’s, Moira’s, and Rob’s certainly do. All three must face the mistakes of their pasts, and deal with them within the difficult surroundings of a world vastly changed. How they do so shows their growth as individuals. Even more importantly, it shows that, just maybe, there will still be a future for them.

gilda_elise

A powerful and fierce reimagining of the earliest Roman legend: the twins, Romulus and Remus, mythical founders of history’s greatest empire, and the woman whose sacrifice made it all possible.

The names Romulus and Remus may be immortalized in map and stone and chronicle, but their mother exists only as a preface to her sons’ journey, the princess turned oath-breaking priestess, condemned to death alongside her children.

But she did not die; she survived. And so does her story. Beautiful, royal, rich: Rhea has it all—until her father loses his kingdom in a treacherous coup, and she is sent to the order of the Vestal Virgins to ensure she will never produce an heir.

Except when mortals scheme, gods laugh.

Rhea becomes pregnant, and human society turns against her. Abandoned, ostracized, and facing the gravest punishment, Rhea forges a dangerous deal with the divine, one that will forever change the trajectory of her life…and her beloved land.

To save her sons and reclaim their birthright, Rhea must summon nature’s mightiest force – a mother’s love – and fight. All roads may lead to Rome, but they began with Rhea Silvia.

The story aligns quite closely to the mythology, but this is Rhea Silvia’s story and she is very much front and center. Who she was, her life before her father’s kingdom was taken from him. And how she managed to survive afterwards makes for a compelling story. She makes some huge mistakes, but ultimately finds a way forward. Her sons are her world, and she does everything she can to insure their survival.

But there were others in her life; her cousin, Antho, is probably the most important. I loved their relationship, more like sisters than cousins. Unlike so many others in Rhea’s life, she manages to survive. There is Rhea’s father, who disappoints her so many times, yet she clings to her memories of their time together when she was a child. And, of course, the gods.

I’m so looking forward to reading more by this author.

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