Outside, the rain continues unceasing; silver sheets sluicing down, the trees and shrubs soaking and bedraggled, the earth sodden, puddles overflowing, torrents coursing onwards, as the darkness slowly softens with the dawn.

Ester is a family therapist with an appointment book that catalogues the anxieties of the middle class- loneliness, relationships, death. She spends her days helping others find happiness, but her own family relationships are tense and frayed. Estranged from both her sister, April, and her ex-husband, Lawrence, Ester wants to fall in love again. Meanwhile, April is struggling through her own directionless life; Lawrence's reckless past decisions are catching up with him; and Ester and April's mother, Hilary, is about to make a choice that will profoundly affect then all.

Taking place largely over one rainy day in Sydney, and rendered with the evocative and powerful prose Blain is known for, Between a Wolf and a Dog is a celebration of the best in all of us - our capacity to live in the face of ordinary sorrows, and to draw strength from the transformative power of art. Ultimately, it is a joyous tribute to the beauty of being alive.


'Blain just gets better and better. The clarity, warmth and precision of Between a Wolf and a Dog brings to mind the formal beauty of an exquisitely cut gemstone. Blain looks at the big questions - mortality, grief, forgiveness - through the lens of one family's everyday struggle to love each other. This portrait of marriage and work, of sisterhood, mothers, and daughters is resolute and clear-eyed; so commanding and beautifully written it made me cry.'
- Charlotte Wood, author of The Natural Way of Things

' A beautifully tender exploration of the complications of family love, self-knowledge, and the struggle for forgiveness.'
- Gail Jones, author of A Guide to Berlin

'What a marvellously clear eye Georgia Blain has for the ways in which we love and harm one another . . . a remarkable book.'
- Michelle de Kretser

'Between a Wolf and a Dog is an elegantly told story describing the ambiguities within human relationships. Each evening, when my children slept, I would enter the world of this book - coming to know a flawed, courageous, and creative family of characters, as they struggled to be good, to be whole, and finally, to let go.'
- Sofie Laguna, author of The Eye of the Sheep