The Pensing Connection

After her father’s death, eleven-year-old Rowan Graham wrestles with depression. Carolina, her mother, looks for a way to ease her daughter’s grief and decides to adopt another dog. Rowan chooses a wolfhound-deerhound mix and believes she and the pup, Zephyr, communicate through mind-pictures, a phenomenon that her mom rejects. While vacationing, the family is embroiled in a multi-car accident; Zephyr is pitched from the van and bolts into the wilds of central Oregon. Medics airlift comatose Rowan to Portland for head trauma care.

It’s the festive winter season at Bender’s Ridge. Rowan—now fifteen—and her dog Zephyr have deepened their uncanny mind communication despite her mother’s skepticism. A present reveals the surprise her parents, Carolina and Moss, have been hiding: she’s going to get the brother or sister she’s always wanted. During the pregnancy, complications arise. Moss insists they hire a live-in au pair, who becomes an integral part of the family.

In this third novel in The Pensing Connection series, Rowan Westbury now twenty, is finishing her last semester in college, and is still very much in love with Ben Singleton. Zephyr, her beloved sighthound mix whom she communicates with intuitively, is now eleven and showing signs of age. Zeph penses Rowan that they need to search for a pup who can serve as Rowan’s companion when she is gone. Devastated, but pushed by Zephyr’s insistence, Rowan begins the search.