Natalie DeAngelo lost everything the day her two young sons were killed in a school shooting. Desperate to find relief from her unspeakable loss, she volunteers as a veterinarian on an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, but soon realizes she may be in over her head. Battling the memories that torment her day and night, Natalie must find a way to heal an angry, injured elephant named Sophie. Through love, acceptance, and gentle care, Natalie and Sophie heal together, finding new ways to enjoy life again.

A writer, theater critic, mosaic artist, and educator, Dawn Reno Langley has devoted her life to literature and the arts. Born an Army brat to a WWII and Korea vet and his wife, Dawn spent her childhood scaring her younger siblings with stories of monsters under the bed. Her first published works, an essay on the Cuban missile crisis, revealed a deep sense of social justice that has never waned. Since then, she has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, has published children’s books, novels, nonfiction books, short stories and poetry, as well as theater reviews and blogs.

A Fulbright scholar with an MFA in Fiction and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies, Langley lives in Durham, North Carolina, a small city where people present her with new stories every day. She is always amazed that one finds most stories in small places rather than large cities, and she appreciates the warmth of the friends she has made in the town she calls “funky/artsy.”