The Reading Bud

Book Details:

Author: Holly B. Gutwillinger 
Release Date: 14 February 2026
Series:
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Animal Fiction
Format: E-book 
Pages: 264 pages
Publisher: Ramblings From The Little Shed Publishing
Blurb:
Renley Nelsen’s life is unravelling. She’s caught between midlife melancholy, her sons have drifted away, and her mother’s mind is slipping beyond reach.
Sully, the youngest in a pack of abandoned dogs in Ontario’s northern woods, knows only survival. Neglected and scarred, his distrust run deep.
When Renley’s closest friend begs her to join a dog rescue mission, she sees an escape. However, the broken animals, especially Sully, force her to confront more than she bargained for. As she works to dave the pack, Renley discovers hidden strength and faces an impossible choice: keep running or find the courage to claim the life she deserves.
Told from alternating perspectives between Renley and Sully, this is a story of mutual acceptance, where woman and dog must learn that healing demands the bravery to stay, when everything inside you wants to run.

Review

North of Broken & Furever Home by Holly B. Gutwillinger is a warm, emotional, dog-centred novel about grief, rescue, midlife restlessness, family tension, and the strange, healing ways animals enter our lives exactly when we need them. The story follows Renley, a forty-seven-year-old wife, mother, shelter volunteer, and lifelong “serial starter,” who is still grieving the loss of her dog Chance while trying to understand what her life means now that her sons are leaving home. Parallel to Renley’s story is Sully’s: a young stray dog trying to survive in the northern wilderness after being separated from his mother and pack.

The dual perspective is the book’s most distinctive feature. Renley’s chapters are grounded in the recognisable messiness of domestic life whereas Sully’s chapters, told from the dog’s point of view, bring a very different emotional cadence that is vulnerable, instinctive, sometimes heartbreaking, and often surprisingly funny. His world of Mama, Middle Dog, Big Dog, Salty Dog, Lazy Dog, Tree, and the humans who may or may not be safe gives the novel its tenderest emotional pull.

What I appreciated most is that author Gutwillinger does not make animal rescue look simple or sentimental. The book understands that rescue is not just the happy moment of bringing a dog home; it is fear, logistics, exhaustion, guilt, medical worries, failed placements, behavioural challenges, and the slow building of trust. The rescue trip to Hidden River is one of the strongest sections of the novel because it brings Renley’s internal arc and Sully’s survival story together. Renley is not only rescuing a dog; she is proving to herself that she can do hard things, step beyond the comfort of her routine, and still has a self outside motherhood, marriage, and responsibility.

What stayed with me most is the way the novel treats dogs not as accessories to human healing, but as emotional beings with fear, memory, attachment, confusion, and their own need for safety. Sully and Cash are not simply “rescues” who fix Renley’s life. They complicate it, expand it, exhaust it, and ultimately enrich it. By the end, the title’s playfulness feels earned: “furever home” is not just about where a dog lands, but about the ongoing work of choosing love, patience, and belonging every day.

Overall, North of Broken & Furever Home is a heartfelt and comforting novel for readers who love animal stories, family dramas, and gentle emotional journeys. It is tender without being weightless, honest without being bleak, and especially moving in its understanding that healing rarely arrives suddenly. Sometimes, it comes in muddy paws, worried eyes, nervous tail wags, and the decision to open the door again.

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