An evening with bestselling author Annie Hartnett? Yes please! We are so thrilled to welcome Annie to Plenty, all the way from BOSTON, with her latest novel, Road to Tender Hearts. Annie is also author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals.
Road to Tender Hearts is a darkly comic yet warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush —bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death. It's amazing.
We do want to mention that there are several difficult topics brought to light in this book, so it may be triggering for some. However, we also love how Hartnett writes about some of life's most terrible circumstances with such thoughtfulness and hope.
To attend the event is free! Please take a moment to RSVP on our website if you’re able, it helps us with planning. We will have copies of Annie's books available for purchase at the bookshop, and Annie will be available for signing following the discussion.
ABOUT THE BOOK
At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.
But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.
Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who's adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.
This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a fresh shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.
ABOUT THR AUTHOR
Annie Hartnett is the author of Unlikely Animals, which won the Julia Ward Howe Prize for fiction and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She is also the author of Rabbit Cake, a finalist for the New England Book Award and a Kirkus Reviews best book of the year. Hartnett has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Associates of the Boston Public Library. Along with the writer Tessa Fontaine, she co-runs the Accountability Workshops for writers, helping them commit to routines and embrace the long, slow, joyful, terrible process of doing the work. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and dog.
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