The Road to Tender Hearts
by Annie Hartnett (2025)
Wednesday, December 17, 1pm
**See content warnings at end of post.
A beautiful reminder that the world is full of tragedy, but life-changing joy and connection might be just around the corner. -Kirkus starred review
Resources:
- Summary blurb from the publisher.
- Author's homepage.
- Interview with Hartnett on Marginalia, NPR(35 min)
- Interview on The Roundtable, NPR (11 min)
Hartnett wrote two previous novels:
- Unlikely Animals 2022 (FIC HAR) - Emma Starling, a natural-born healer who lost her way, and her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain injury, team up to find Emma's former best friend from high school who has gone missing, setting in motion a miracle the town needs.
- Rabbit Cake 2017 (Libby audio or ILL) - A debut novel follows the darkly comic experiences of a precocious 12-year-old girl named Elvis who worries about her troubled family and tries to figure out her place in the world in the aftermath of her mother's accidental death.
Read-a-likes in our collection (most of the parenthetical notes come from BooklistPlus, a website to which your library card gives you access):
- Espach's The Wedding People (oddly funny and heartwarming novels with tough subject matters) FIC ESP
- Halpern's A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher (animals in nursing homes; this one is nonfiction) 636.708 HAL
- Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (novels with MC who spontaneously embarks on a cross-country trip to reunite with an old friend) FIC JOY
- McKenzie's The Dog of the North (endearingly odd protagonists, offbeat novels, unforgettable road trips inspire moving discoveries about family) LP MCK
- Rowley's The Guncle (single men unexpectedly take on care of young siblings in funny, bittersweet novels) FIC ROW
- Wilson's Run for the Hills (cross-country road trip is the catalyst for reconnection among family members in endearing, character-driven novels) NEW FIC WIL
Content Warnings
alcoholism, heart condition, domestic abuse, poisoning, murder-suicide, suicide, murder, death, estranged parents, cancer, paternity test, abandonment, drowning, loneliness, untreated mental illness
