UNLEASHED

In this debut novel, a severe car accident, and a girl’s injured dog, bring a traumatized war veteran and a widow together.

Thirty-eight-year old novelist Moss Westbury, a veteran suffering from PTSD, lives in the mountain town of Sisters, Oregon. He savors the stillness of his isolated life, in which he tries to avoid “the quicksand of despair.” Two years ago, his leg was blown off by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and he’s finding civilian life difficult, especially after he’s jilted by his fiancee. In Eugene, a two-hour drive away, seamstress Carolina Graham contemplates options for a camping trip with her 11-year-old daughter, Rowan, and their two dogs, Stormy and Zephyr. The latter, a wolfhound-deerhound mix, has eased Rowan’s grief over her father’s death four years earlier. The girl has a special, seemingly telepathic bond with the dog, communicating with her through “mind-pictures.” But as the family van nears Sisters, a deer plows into it, causing a multicar accident. Stormy is killed and Zephyr bolts into the forest. Rowan is airlifted to a Portland hospital with head trauma; she survives, but loses her sight. After reading newspaper accounts of the accident, Moss tries to find Zephyr in the wilderness, and ends up saving her life. Moss is faced with new possibilities when he meets Carolina and Rowan. Blaine (Bound to Love, 2015) effectively places the story of the girl and her dog at the center of her debut novel. Readers will likely be able to see where the story is headed fairly early on, and the author’s handling of Moss’ trauma sometimes feels stereotypical and clichéd. However, the novel is most successful when it gets out of the characters’ heads and allows them to interact directly, as when Moss tells Carolina, “Zephyr opened a door for me—now I know I need other warm-blooded beings around me.” 

A warmhearted, if predictable, exploration of healing that will have special appeal to dog lovers.