The Lost Dog Giveaway

Today being Black Friday and all, some of you are probably out scouring the stores for the best possible deals for the special people on your holiday shopping lists. In honor of that crazy generosity (I personally am still tucked warm in my bed), I thought I would offer up a giveaway I was told I could have months ago and kept putting off to save for something special. And now's the time. Enter to win a gift for yourself during the season during which you are focused on others. It is always better to give than to receive. So I am going to give, with a little help from the always generous folks at Hatchette Books, and 5 of you lucky readers get to receive. Win. Win.

In case the totally appealing cover hasn't already convinced you to enter the draw, here's what amazon says about the book:

De Kretser (The Hamilton Case) presents an intimate and subtle look at Tom Loxley, a well-intentioned but solipsistic Henry James scholar and childless divorcé, as he searches for his missing dog in the Australian bush. While the overarching story follows Tom's search during a little over a week in November 2001, flashbacks reveal Tom's infatuation with Nelly Zhang, an artist tainted by scandal—from her controversial paintings to the disappearance and presumed murder of her husband, Felix, a bond trader who got into some shady dealings. As Tom puts the finishing touches on his book about James and the uncanny and searches for his dog, de Kretser fleshes out Tom's obsession with Nelly—from the connection he feels to her incendiary paintings (one exhibition was dubbed Nelly's Nasties in the press) to the sleuthing about her past that he's done under scholarly pretenses. Things progress rapidly, with a few unexpected turns thrown in as Tom and Nelly get together, the murky circumstances surrounding Felix's disappearance are (somewhat) cleared up and the matter of the missing dog is settled. De Kretser's unadorned, direct sentences illustrate her characters' flaws and desires, and she does an admirable job of illuminating how life and art overlap in the 21st century.

The rules are pretty usual:

1. US and Canada only.
2. No PO boxes.
3. Leave a comment for an entry. Any entries without an e-mail address will be ignored.
4. Enter no later than Dec. 4 at midnight.
5. Winners drawn Dec. 5 will have until Dec. 8 to send me their physical addresses to be passed along to the Hatchette folks. Any unclaimed books after that date will be awarded to the next name drawn by random.org.

Good luck and happy entering!