A hilarious and warm-hearted novel about starting over, featuring an eccentric old man who embarks on a road trip with the most unexpected companions to reunite with his high school sweetheart—from the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals

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 an obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new ardor for life, PJ decides he’s going 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 figures he can ask Ruthie, his adult daughter, adrift in her 20s, 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 second 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.

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, and 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, 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 writers 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.