When a hurricane blow through town and threaten the future of Olivia Clark’s animal shelter, she publicizes her desperate plea for help to the masses. Aid comes from a surprising source: Chloe Homestead. Olivia’s ex-girlfriend from thirteen years ago and the only girl Olivia has ever loved. Chloe, a self-made millionaire, offers to finance and manage the shelter’s repairs and operations, a gesture Olivia is in no position to refuse. Working intimately together to provide loving care to homeless animals, Olivia struggles to keep her composure in Chloe’s fun and flirty presence. As Olivia’s walls start to crumble, the past catches up to them. Chloe has a dark secret, a secret that she’s been carrying around for thirteen years. 

Will Chloe’s secret threaten the future of the shelter and the relationship she has worked so hard to restore?

This book delves deeply into the selfless world of dogs, animals, puppies, animal shelters, philanthropy, and family.

REVIEW
I can’t get enough of these novels featuring lesbians who work in animal shelters. Just! Can’t! Get! Enough! Almost immediately after reading Rescued Heart, I came across A New Leash on Life by Suzie Carr. You can tell almost immediately that this author is a die-hard animal-lover. If I was working for the HR department at ASPCA, you’d bet I’d be dialing her number. It’s heart-warming and gratifying to read and review well-written works of fiction that are not only great stories, but that also help bring awareness to its readers on current issues and causes in our world. One of the messages from this novel is clear: all animals deserve a whole lot of love and a happy home.

With novels, if there’s too much detail, readers get aggravated and/or bored and want to chuck the book before they’re done. If there’s too little detail, the story seems superficial and rushed. Suzie Carr has a well-balanced approach to her writing, so you won’t find any long-winded narration (like.. ahem, Charles Dickens) in her novels. She provides just the right amount of detail to keep readers engaged in the plot-line and the characters.

There’s plenty of angst and a closet full of skeletons just waiting to pop out and spook the shit out of the characters. I won’t give anything away, but let’s just say that Chloe was (and is) in quite the predicament and as the reader, you will eventually be able to understand why she made certain choices and sacrifices in her past. There’s a lot to be revealed and you’ll be eagerly anticipating what will happen once the blindfolds are off.

What I enjoyed about this novel is how beautifully human the main characters were portrayed as being, and how imperfectly perfect they are as they make their way back towards each other. Their situation is less than ideal (to say the least), but in the end, life has a mysterious way of fitting it all together. They are, to each other, exactly what they need from another and you’ll be rooting for them all the way.

SOUNDTRACK
1. The Strokes – Someday
2. Oasis – Wonderwall
3. The Killers – Change Your Mind
4. Morrissey – The More You Ignore Me the Closer I Get
5. Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows
6. Keane – Bedshaped
7. Mumford & Sons – I Will Wait
8. Coldplay – Warning Sign
9. Foo Fighters – Walking After You
10. Vampire Weekend – Step
11. Smashing Pumpkins – Beautiful

CHEERS!
This book would be best read with a….

BLUE MOON BELGIAN WHITE