Alice Fantastic — Maggie Estep

An “entertaining” novel about a family of three women “navigating relationships, a half-dozen lovers and innumerable dogs” (Publishers Weekly).
 
Alice Hunter is a thirty-six-year-old professional gambler living in Queens, New York. She is modestly successful as a horseplayer and enjoys her work. Though she is avidly pursued by her lover, Clayton, whom she refers to as The Big Oaf, Alice's real closest companion is a small spotted dog, and Alice likes it that way.
 
When Clayton's overzealousness leads Alice to ask one of her racetrack cronies to intimidate him into leaving her, a few things go wrong -- and Alice turns to her half-sister Eloise, a toy maker whose own lover has just been killed in a freak accident. Despite their gruffness with each other, there is fierce love among Alice, Eloise, and their unconventional mother, Kimberly -- but it will take the accidental discovery of an awful secret to truly bring three eccentric women, seventeen dogs, and assorted lovers together.
 
“The storytelling has vitality and a spirit of rebellion.” -- The New York Times
 
“There is about Maggie Estep's work a directness, a clear determination -- a drive to cut through, to break through, to claw through -- that is impressive.” -- A. M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven