Luna, Phoenix, Queen

Barr and Dava are married professors at a university, with Barr’s writing winning awards and Dava plugging along at academic research. After Dava suffers early-onset dementia and moves into a facility, Barr discovers an autobiographical novel she’d written and hidden from everyone, especially him, and it shatters his view of his marriage. But with his writing career stalled, he decides to polish her novel and pass it off as his own, earning accolades he’d never received for his own work. While grappling with the ethics of what he’s done, he starts walking an abused dog, Luna, at the local shelter. Luna quickly becomes the center of this novel, as she bears witness to each confession and seems to see right to the very heart of each character and their motivations. Luna is the very best of good dogs, and brings out the very best in the humans around her.