Fiction Book Club: Unlikely Animals

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
Monday January 12
The Starlings live in Everton, an ordinary enough New Hampshire town. It's notable only for Corbin Park, an enormous hunting park, and for Maple Street Cemetery – home to many former residents of Everton. There's also the town legend that Emma Starling was born with healing hands. But Emma has never found the right use for her healing abilities, and they've been on the fritz ever since her childhood best friend, Crystal, fell prey to addiction and disappeared. No one went looking for her; the police don't spend much time looking for drug addicts. Now Emma has come back to Everton to see her dying father, the only person who has kept up the search for Crystal. Ever since his recent diagnosis with a rare brain disease, Clive Starling has been seeing ghosts, including Ernest Harold Baynes, the long-dead naturalist who worked in Corbin Park, and who seems to have some unfinished business in Everton. The residents of Maple Street would like to see Emma live up to her potential as a miracle worker and cure her father. But Emma's not exactly up for the challenge.…