Itching to Love - by Shelley Mickle (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A beloved NPR storyteller and award-winning author discovers life after kids when a neighbor's dog steals her things--and her heart--in this hilarious and uplifting memoir.

In this hilarious memoir, award-winning author Shelley Fraser Mickle takes readers on a humorous yet heartwarming and intimate journey into a slice of her life. Itching to Love gives readers not only laughs but also a realization that their own lives are a singular magnificence enhanced by unexpected detours.

Shelley shares how a woman discovers her neighbor's dog has been stealing her things and stashing them next to his food bowl and forcing her to ponder, What did he see in her that she did not see in herself? Never in her wildest dreams would she have predicted that she would fall in love with a dog with yellow snake eyes who refuses to let her be owned by anyone else.

In this short memoir you will find yourself smiling, laughing, and crying as Shelley introduces you to astronauts, Founding Fathers, family members we can all relate to, along with many others who educated her heart. And, of course, Buddy the ordinary dog who sensed she was secretly harboring an unrecognized sorrow.

When her second novel Replacing Dad was translated into film, one reviewer said it was the funniest story since Auntie Mame. Yes, Shelley is indeed funny, which is why NPR in Washington D.C. called one day to ask her to tell her stories on Morning Edition, which she did for six years.

Review Quotes

"Shelley Mickle is hilarious; in fact, Itching to Love is reminiscent of the writing of Nora Ephron and Erma Bombeck. As a producer for the movie based on her book Replacing Dad as well as listening to her stories on NPR, I find her both funny and wise. There is always a lesson in her stories, but you have to think about what those lessons are because she would no more hit you on the head with them than not kiss her dog or her horse on the head every morning with her brightest red lipstick. Itching to Love is a treasure not to be missed."

--Dale Eldridge Kaye, Producer, Replacing Dad for CBS, Founder, Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group

"What a delight! This 'story of a dog' is ultimately the story of the dog's owner and companion, a remarkable writer who warms us with the wisdom and perspective that come from a lifetime filled with animals, people, history, science, and literature. An absolutely unique memoir by one of the South's great storytellers."

--Danny Rubin, screenwriter, Groundhog Day

About the Author

Shelley Fraser Mickle is an award-winning novelist whose first novel, The Queen of October, was a New York Times Notable Book and selected by Library Journal as one of the ten best adult books suitable for young adults. Her novel Replacing Dad won an America's Writers Award in Chicago and was adapted for film. Her nonfiction book for middle-grade readers, Barbaro, America's Horse, won a Bank Street Award, and American Pharaoh, Triple Crown Champion, was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of the best nonfiction books for children in 2017. From 2000 to 2006 she was a commentator for National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."