Title: The Dog Walker’s Diary
Author: Kathryn Donahue
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Cover Designer: Madeline Berger
Editor: Kelsy Thompson
Blurb:
Daniel Ashe has reason to believe he is incapable of falling in love. He certainly has no romantic interest in Annie, the odd Irish woman he hired to walk his dogs – but every night he comes home to find she has left him a new and fantastical story about their secret lives. His dachshund is a buccaneer on the high seas, his retriever recounts a past life as a circus lion, and Daniel is cast time and again as a romantic hero.
As her stories become the highlight of his day, Daniel realizes that Annie is embedding hints about her own astonishing past, and he has to ask himself if he’s truly incapable of falling in love after all.
Kathryn Donahue is a freelance writer and former tongue-in-cheek advice columnist for The Deepwell Press. Her humor essays have been published in First Sunday, and she won the Spotlight Award for her one-act play The Sty. Her debut novel, The Dog Walker’s Diary, is a Forward finalist for Indie Book of the Year. It earned a coveted star review from Publishers Weekly, ( “… a diverting delight from beginning to end,”) and a four star rating from RT Book Reviews, (“… one of the most remarkably unique contemporary romances this year.”) Ms. Donahue is completing a new novel, and working on a screenplay.
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10/29/15
Dog Diary
Thursday, 5:00 a.m.
Dear Annie,
Your stories are back in here, but during their short hiatus to my office I showed them to my boss. After reading them, Peter took off his glasses and said, “So you’re telling me that this woman leaves you a new fairy tale every night?”
“Yes. Every night.”
“Then you know what she is, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“This Irish woman. Do you know what she is?”
I shook my head. “What are you talking about? What is she?”
“Wake up, Daniel. That dog walker of yours is a Scheherazade.”
Annie, you didn’t respond to my invitation, and in looking back I can see how easily it could be misconstrued. If I were a woman, alone and in a different country, I might not agree to meet a semi-stranger for coffee either, even if I had been entertaining him for days with fantastical stories.
So please, allow me to make myself less of a stranger.
I am known by a small but select group of females as a heartless jerk incapable of falling in love. Each in turn soon gave up on me, more with a sad shake of the head than with dishes flying. It has happened so often that I have to concede the ladies are right. Apparently I have skipped or tripped over some developmental step that makes me incapable of true intimacy. I’ve made my peace with that, and recently have been lucky enough to meet Victoria, a lady who seems to suffer the same affliction. (Does that make us soul mates or soul-less mates?)
And here’s an interview with the author!
- Who is your favorite author?
- I spread my love around. Historical fiction, literary, or works that put me in ancient China or India or England during the Age of Enlightenment. But what I enjoy the most are stories told with wry humor, and it doesn’t get funnier than John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Only wished he had lived to write many more. When I saw the movie, Cold Comfort Farm I couldn’t rest until I had the book in my hands. More recent books that kept me laughing include Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove and my favorite, Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.
How do you describe your writing style?
In the dark – literally because I’m an insomniac who writes overnight, and figuratively because I’m not one to make outlines or have the plot figured out ahead of time.
Why should we read your books?
While you might have to pay a bit of attention at the beginning of The Dog Walker’s Diary, once you understand the quirky style, I think it will take you on an enjoyable ride.
Have any of your characters been modelled after yourself?
Sure. My point of view character has my insomnia, and both main characters have my sense of humor. Daniel Ashe is afraid of redheaded women. Thanks to a dream and an accident he had as a teenager, he half-believes redheads have powers left over from the days of Druids. That trait came directly from my husband. He married into a family of redheads, and he thinks we’ve all been blessed by the gods.
If you could exchange lives with any of your characters for a day which character would you choose and why?
Annie Doherty. She doesn’t have a boring bone in her body.
What books have most influenced your life?
Pride and Prejudice gave me a sense of romantic love. That’s big when you’re being courted. You don’t want to end up with Mr. Collins when you can have Mr. Darcy!
If you could select one book that you could rewrite and add your own unique twist on, which book would that be and why?
Every one of us has her own unique story. Mine itches to get on paper, and I have no desire to retell anyone else’s.
Beatles or Monkees? Why?
The Beatles. Authentic to the bone. (Does anyone pick the Monkees?)
Who should play you in a film of your life?
Saoirse Ronan. But I’d rather she play Annie Doherty.
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