Gayle Shanks is co-owner of Changing Hands, a fabulous independent bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. Every month, she sends an email to customers about goings-on in the store, new books, and the like. This month, she spends most of her note extolling the virtues of a novel from last year that has just been published in paperback - The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.

Gayle acknowledges up front that the author is making an appearance in the store later in the month, but her recommendation is not to be taken lightly. As you'll see in her message, Gayle has made it a habit over the years to alert her customers to great reads from (at the time) unknown authors. Here's what she has to say:

"The story, set in Colorado after a flu pandemic has wiped out most of the world's population, is a stunning, beautifully written debut that had me cheering and sharing it with everyone I know when it came out in hardcover last year. You might not have heard of him, but you can trust me on this one, as you have over the years with such greats - but at the time unknowns - as Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone), Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club), Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated), Justin Torres (We the Animals), and Alice LaPlante (Turn of Mind). Peter Heller is a rising star in my world of favorite writers, and his amazing novel has just arrived in paperback.

"A brief synopsis of the story: Hig survived the flu but lost his wife and all of his friends and family. For the past nine years he has coexisted with a survivalist loner named Bangley at an abandoned airport in eastern Colorado. Bangley has a well stocked arsenal, and between them they keep a watchful eye for unfriendly invaders. Hig's real friend is his dog, Jasper, with whom he spends his days trout fishing, scrounging for food, and searching for fuel for his small two-seater plane, which he flies in ever-widening circles looking for survivors. Nights are spent staring at the constellations. On one of his forays aloft, Hig hears, through broken static, a voice over the plane's radio - an incident that haunts him for weeks. Eventually, he goes in search of this other human being. Packing enough supplies to get him there and back, he flies off toward the area where the voice was first heard. During his six-week journey, Hig discovers more than he bargained for. In sparse, poetic prose, Heller conveys a soaring spirit of hope that triumphs over heartbreak, trauma, loneliness, and seemingly insurmountable odds."