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From the winner of the 2016 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction comes a tender and funny debut novel, set over one emotionally charged weekend at an animal sanctuary in western Kansas, where maternal, romantic, and community bonds are tested in the wake of an estranged daughter's homecoming.The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals is in trouble. It's late 2016 when Ariel discovers that her mother Mona's animal sanctuary in Western Kansas has not only been the target of anti-Semitic hate crimes - but that it's also for sale, due to hidden financial ruin. Ariel, living a new life in progressive Lawrence, and estranged from her mother for six long years, knows she has to return to her childhood home - especially since her own past may have played a role in the attack on the sanctuary.