Unlikely Animals: A Novel

When Emma Starling returns to her small New Hampshire town, she comes in disgrace. The former golden girl has not only flunked out of medical school but never even showed up to the first day! A natural-born healer, she’s dropped out of her own life and it’s sent her back home, where her father is dying of a brain disease, one that causes him to hallucinate that he sees animals and the ghost of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes.

Not only is her own family in crisis—her brother fresh out of rehab, her mother’s crippling perfectionism—but Emma’s best friend from high school has gone missing and no one seems to care. Other than the residents of the cemetery, who act as narrators, they know exactly where Crystal is, but the dead aren’t allowed to interfere…

Described as tragicomic, Unlikely Animals is the kind of novel that manages to hit both at just the right angles. There’s enough comedy to keep serious topics light and enough tragedy to keep the comedy real. Annie Harnett wields a talented pen with this novel that pulls on the heartstrings even as it busts a gut from laughter.