Haven Kimmel

Cassie waits for her gambling father to return home, her mother to move away from her position at the kitchen sink, for her fragile older sister to blossom out of her oddness, and for her own chance at a different life. Effortlessly living up to her Book Magazine moniker, the New Carson McCullers, Kimmel deftly handles this coming of age story and proves herself a master of genre.

From her earliest years, Trace turned away from her abusive mother toward her loving father. Within the twisty logic of abuse, her desperate love for him took on a romantic cast that persists to this day, though she's had no contact with her family since she ran away from home years ago. Alone but for her beloved dog, she's eked out an impoverished but functional existence, living in an abandoned house, putting herself through college, and astonishing...

A continuation of the memoir "A Girl Named Zippy" follows the story of her mother, Delonda, who reinvents her life by returning to college and losing fifty pounds, while Zippy continues to work out the dynamic of their nuclear family.

Chained alone in a barn by the couple he thought might give him a good home, a very ugly stray dog is miserable until a new neighbor moves in and he falls in love.