The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel - By Katrina Kittle Page 0,143
complain and cry out, ‘Not again!’ but Danny adored them.”
He’d been very small. Four, maybe five. And he’d been playing by himself in the backyard of this very house. Mom and Dad loved to tell how Danny came running into the house and shouted, “Did you know that when you jump, both your feet come off the ground?”
Everyone thought it was so cute and dumb, but really, to Danny, it had been a scary moment and an amazing realization. He had seen his shadow against the garage. He had jumped into the air and had seen this space between his body and the grass. Against the white wall of the garage, he saw himself floating, not connected to anything.
“He saw himself floating, not connected to anything. What kept you from floating away?”
What kept you from floating away?
Dad had told him about gravity, but it was Mom who listened to Danny explain his fear and who hugged him and said, “I’ll keep you from floating away. There’s a connection between us, even though you can’t see it. You’ll always be connected to us.”
When Danny used to think about his father dead, he sometimes thought of a shadow floating. Dad was like Danny’s own shadow. Danny couldn’t really touch it, and it was sometimes really hard to see, but it was always there. Danny knew it. He couldn’t lose it.
And that was family. That was the feeling of safety.
And so even though he used to be embarrassed when they told that story, now he liked it. That story was a connection, too. It connected everyone who told it to each other.
But that story was from Before.
There were new stories. The stories of After.
And the story of how Before became After.
The story of how they became who they were now.
Read on
Have You Read?
More by Katrina Kittle
TRAVELING LIGHT
“Travel light and you can sing in the robber’s face” was the best advice Summer Zwolenick ever received from her father, though she didn’t recognize it at the time. Three years after the accident that ended her career as a ballerina, she is back in the familiar suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, teaching at a local high school. But it wasn’t nostalgia that called Summer home. It was her need to spend quality time with her brother Todd and his devoted partner, Jacob. Todd, the golden athlete whose strength and spirit encouraged Summer to nurture her own unique talents and follow her dream, is in the final stages of a terminal illness. In a few short months, he will be dead—leaving Summer only a handful of precious days to learn all the lessons her brother still has to teach her . . . from how to love and how to live to letting go.
Traveling Light is the deeply moving debut novel from Katrina Kittle, the acclaimed author of The Kindness of Strangers—an unforgettable story of love, bonds, and promises that endure longer than life itself.
“Wonderfully moving . . . hard to put down and harder still to forget.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Compelling reading, the kind that encourages you to stay up for hours just to see what happens next. . . . Readers who have weathered their own personal journeys will close the book with a heartfelt ‘Bravo!’ ”
—Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)
“Full of life lessons . . . caged in beautiful writing.”
—Dayton Daily News
“This novel about a death is transformed into a celebration of life.”
—Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE
Dair Canard has long been a master at weaving stories out of thin air. A natural actress, she leads a life that’s a minefield of untruths she can never admit to anyone—especially not to Peyton, her husband of eight years. But the bizarre death of her best friend and fellow actor—initially thought a suicide, then believed to be murder—is forcing Dair to confront the big lie that led Peyton to fall in love with her in the first place. Haunted by the terrible events that are suddenly ripping her life wide open, Dair is struggling to find answers—taking steps that could well lead to the destruction of her marriage, her career . . . even her freedom.
But everyone around her has secrets and something to hide. Dair’s determination to unravel the decade-old web of her own tightly woven deceptions is awakening inner demons she has fought hard to control . . . and revealing that she’s closer to a killer than she ever imagined.
“A chilling, sensitive thriller. . . . Readers will hold their breath as her tale comes to a suspenseful conclusion.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A tale of suspense, lies, and redemption.”
—Tacoma News Tribune (Washington)
“Always surprising. . . . Ms. Kittle follows up Traveling Light with equal aplomb.”
—Cincinnati Enquirer
“Fiction as it ought to be. . . . A superbly tense and witty novel that offers a fresh angle on the human soul. It will leave you craving more from this deliciously talented writer.”
—Chris Gilson, author of Crazy for Cornelia
Don’t miss the next book by your favorite author. Sign up now for AuthorTracker by visiting www.AuthorTracker.com.
ALSO BY KATRINA KITTLE
The Kindness of Strangers
Two Truths and a Lie
Traveling Light
Praise for
The Kindness of Strangers
“A moving novel about the ways in which healing can occur after a child’s sexual abuse; Kittle’s clear prose gives a luminous quality to her story of thriving against the odds.”
—People
“Katrina Kittle’s compulsively readable The Kindness of Strangers is a powerful public-service narrative about child abuse and its effects on a family.”
—Chicago Tribune
“[A] heartbreaking story [that] encompasses fear, fury and loyalty. . . . Thanks to the author’s exceptionally fluent narrative skill, [this] novel . . . becomes utterly compelling. . . . Kittle unfurls her tale with absolute devotion.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Praise for
Two Truths and a Lie
“A chilling, sensitive thriller . . . Readers will hold their breath as her tale comes to a suspenseful conclusion.”
—Publishers Weekly
Praise for
Traveling Light
“[A] wonderfully moving book on love in all its variations. Kittle’s novel is hard to put down, and harder still to forget.”