Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf

Two loners in a country town find cause for hope when one of them encounters a long-lost animal in this taut, shimmering tale by Sonya Hartnett about daring to live a life beyond expectations.

Ever since Dad went off the deep end and decided he didn't need to work anymore — insisting the Lord would provide — Satchel O'Rye has felt stuck for life in his dying country town. A high school dropout drifting from one small carpentry job to the next, Satchel can see nothing beyond his own dreary duty to help keep the family afloat. But things start to change when he spies a strange doglike animal at a nearby mountain — and mentions the fact to Chelsea Piper, an awkward young woman considered the local pariah. Could the animal he saw be a Tasmanian tiger, a marsupial thought to be extinct? And if they found it again, could it give them both a new chance at life?

From the brilliant author of Thursday's Child and What the Birds See comes a mesmerizing tale of a young man fighting his future, a young woman fighting her past, and a mysterious creature who teaches them something about survival.