Lost & Found

Lost & Found 

By Jacqueline Sheehan

It's just a typical morning when Rocky hears a large thump in the upstairs bathroom.  When she goes to check on her husband, Bob, she finds him lying on the floor.  She attempts CPR until the paramedics arrive but Bob is pronounced dead of a heart attack at 42 years old.  Racked by grief and unable to cope with the normal everyday world, Rocky takes a year leave from her job as a psychologist at the local college and heads to an island off of the Maine coast that she visited with her family as a young child.

After arriving on the island, Rocky takes a part time job as an Animal Control Warden.  Tourist season has just ended and her first few jobs are collecting the stray dogs and cats that the summer people have abandoned as they left.   Rocky is still deep in grief, spending her sleeping time wandering through her dreams in a futile search to find her husband.  She meets a few of the locals; Tess, who has a rare and fascinating condition called synthesia;  (Synthesia is a condition where one sensation creates another, such as a sound is accompanied by the sensation of a color. ) Melissa is a teenage, anorexic neighbor girl and Isiah is Rocky's boss.  

Rocky gets a call that there is a large black lab outside one of the local restaurants scrounging through the garbage.  When Rocky arrives to round him up, she finds the dog with a primitive arrow in his shoulder.  She gathers him up and takes him to the vet.  When the dog is ready to be released, Rocky decides to bring him home as a foster dog until his owners can be found.  Taking care of the dog and helping to heal begins to heal Rocky as well.  Melissa meets and falls in love with the dog.  Could he help this troubled teen also?

When the dogs owner is found dead, questions arise as to what happened.  Could the owner of this loving dog actually have tried to kill him with an arrow before she took her own life?  

I enjoyed this book quite a bit and really loved the parts that were written from the dogs point of view.  It was a pretty light read that dealt with some hard issue's, but not in depth.  The early death of a spouse, anorexia, and  domestic violence were all touched on but only scratched the surface of most of these issue's.  The main character, Rocky, was written as a full-bodied character but the rest of the cast was pretty one-dimensional.  I would have really liked to get to know a few of them a bit better than we did.  All in all a good and light read.

This year I have joined the What's in a Name Challenge hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads.  This book meets the  "Lost or Found" category quite well, wouldn't you say?  This is a fun challenge.  I've participated in years past and it's always fun to read through the six categories and pick books from my TBR shelves that work for each category.  Not too late to join! Jump on over and sign up!

Edited:  How about a giveaway - Just leave a comment on this post to have a chance to win my copy of this book.  Random.org will help me choose. 

Congratulations to Sheila of Book Journey, the winner of my copy of Lost & Found~