“Norton rolls over onto her back and waits for me to rub her belly. It’s our ritual. She showed up on my doorstep one night after I had a terrible argument with a friend. Stomping home through the snow, I wished for a new friend. Lo and behold, Norton was at my front door.”
Chloe Sparrow
Chloe Sparrow is a twenty-five-year-old TV producer with a hit show on her hands. The Single Guy is a popular new reality series, where dozens of women are trying to woo bachelor veterinarian Austin Hawke. As the filming gets underway, though, accident-prone Chloe finds herself in one predicament after another: a wayward puck hits her in the face during a hockey game, she sprains her ankle at a dude ranch, and she falls out of a boat at high speed. But Chloe has bigger problems. The stress of her home life with her nutty but loveable Gramps and Aunt Ollie is getting to her, her job is consuming her, and painful memories from her past threaten to overwhelm her. To top it off, her co-worker Amanda is pressuring her to find a boyfriend. It doesn’t take long before Chloe realizes that not having all her wishes come true might not be such a bad idea.
Excerpt
The only thing you need to know about me is that all my wishes come true. It can be a curse.
The wishes have random outcomes; sometimes they don’t happen the way I imagined them, which can be extremely upsetting. It started when I was fifteen and told my parents I wished they’d shut up.
They did. They died in the middle of an argument later that day in front of our Victorian row house in Cabbagetown. Dad was up on a metal ladder while Mom kept it steady, yelling he didn’t know his ass from his elbow and to get down from the utility pole with the hedge clipper before he hit a wire.
After their funeral, mom’s older sister, Aunt Ollie, and my Gramps let me stay in my parents’ house, since they lived right next to me and we shared a front porch and a backyard. They didn’t want me to lose everything, they said. I think they were just alarmed at the thought of me underfoot. Whatever, the arrangement’s worked for ten years. The only downside is listening to the two of them argue through the plastered walls. It’s the same thing every morning, muffled shouts of frustration coming from the bathroom.
“Did you take my teeth again?”
“Why would I want your miserable teeth?”
“You’re taking my money too! Don’t think I haven’t noticed. I’m telling Chloe.”
PRAISE FOR CHLOE SPARROW
“Crewe possesses an intelligence and emotional depth that reverberates long after you’ve stopped laughing.”
– The Chronicle Herald