AustLit

For fourteen-year-old Billy Alexander, things can’t get much worse. His father’s in gaol awaiting the outcome of his appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, and he and his mother have had to move to a new town. He’s having trouble dealing with his feelings towards his father, and hasn’t made any friends at his new school yet. Even worse, the class Over-Achieving-Golden-Boy-And-Bully has targeted him as the next victim. Billy really needs a genuine friend and some guidance.

Enter Abernethy, a beagle who, by virtue of having worked as a witch’s familiar, has been blessed with the power to communicate with certain people. One of those people is Billy. Abernethy becomes Billy’s mentor and friend, and helps him cope with his father’s incarceration, the bullying, his attempts to make new friends, and his mother’s suspected infidelity.

An enjoyable and heart warming story that should appeal to both young and not-as-young adults, and will make you wish you had a friend just like Abernethy, canine or otherwise.

Source: Publisher's Blurb