“For a while I went berserk and wished it would never end...” says the epigraph at the beginning of The Dog of the North and this is exactly how I felt reading this book. I didn’t want it to finish. I hope there’s a sequel. Slightly deranged, it starts with Penny Rush leaving her husband, who sharpens knives for a living, to embark upon a crazy caper across America and Australia - some of it living in the back of Burt Lamprey’s van nicknamed The Dog of the North. It’s funny, it’s romantic, it’s sometimes sad but it is endlessly and gloriously surprising. Most of the trouble is caused by her elderly relatives, who make old age seem hilarious rather than daunting. Elizabeth McKenzie has thrown everything at this book including the kitchen sink and she had me hooked from page one’s description of a train journey.
— Laura