Dear <<Ms. Agent>>,

What happens when you find love and he finds your best friend instead?

If you’re Savannah Leone, you tear off your orange satin maid-of-honor gown, get drunk on Kool-Aid and vodka, and buy a German Shepherd from Slovakia off of the Internet.

In Savannah Leone and Her Trusty Dog, Joe, Savannah, “Van,” struggles with the marriage of her best friend to the man she’s secretly in love with, the loss of her mother to cancer, and all the confusion that goes along with the “now what” stage of twenty-something life. She’s lost her sense of which end is up, so she’s acting on impulses that lead her to love, strength, and a ninety-five pound dog named Joe.

Her inexperience with dogs leads her to consult Dr. Alex Brandt, a vet with floppy blond hair and a winning smile. But just as things are starting to heat up with Alex, the newlyweds come home from their honeymoon, forcing Van to decide between past relationships and the promise of new ones.

Stay is women’s fiction and is approximately 80,000 words. I’ve also written an outline for a sequel.

I live in upstate New York with my 95-pound German Shepherd, (who is from the Catskills, not Slovakia), and write AlliesAnswers.com, a daily eco-friendly blog. My short story, “Bathtub Mary,” will appear in the March 2008 issue of The Summerset Review.

I’ve enclosed the first two chapters and a synopsis. Thank you for taking the time to review my materials.

Best regard,

Allie Larkin