Doyle’s protagonist, BB, inhabits the aftermath of multiple bereavements—partner, father—and navigates a semi-surreal beachside milieu where the quotidian (walking her dog, trying to rebuild a life) collides with deep interior weather.

The result is funny, mordant, and formally alert, blending autofictional energy with a sharp cultural sense of how we make sense of companionship, solitude, and odd consolations in between.

The novel’s humour and pathos are woven through moments that are both direct and oblique. There's misidentifications, philosophical asides, local characters skewering expectation, and the unusual ways dog companionship—its intimacies and absurdities—becomes a pivot for change and reflection. Texture over tidy resolution, and grief’s bluntest edges showing how they reveal small, vivid precisions of attention.