{ "item_title" : "The Third Step", "item_author" : [" T. Calvert Power "], "item_description" : "Eight weeks after the sudden death of her husband Hal, Ruth Ellery's world has gone quiet. The casseroles have stopped. The neighbors have stopped lingering. Her daughter calls every Sunday with careful questions. And Ruth, sixty-three and sensible, moves through her days like someone walking through a house she no longer recognizes.Hal's boots still sit by the door. His mug still waits on the rail. And every evening at five o'clock-the hour he always sat on the porch steps to watch the neighborhood settle-Ruth finds something else to do so she won't have to face the empty space he left behind.Until the night she hears crying.A thin, desperate sound from beneath the porch. A sound that has clearly been happening for a long time. When Ruth kneels with a flashlight, she finds a shivering, wiry little puppy staring back at her with enormous green-gold eyes.What begins as a rescue becomes something far more unexpected.The puppy is barely eight weeks old. Unchipped. Underweight. Alone. And yet he walks straight to Hal's third step-the one with the worn dip in the middle-and sits as though he's been waiting for her.As Ruth cares for him-feeding him eggs, warming him by the radiator, taking him to Dr. Prasad for his first exam-she begins to feel the house shift around her. The quiet changes. The evenings change. The grief changes. And Ruth discovers that healing doesn't always arrive in grand gestures. Sometimes it comes in the shape of a small creature who needs you, fiercely and without apology.THE THIRD STEP is a tender, deeply human novella about grief, companionship, and the unexpected ways love returns to us. Perfect for readers of A Man Called Ove, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, and quiet, emotionally resonant fiction that finds beauty in ordinary days.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/816/200/9798162001263_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "12.99", "online_price" : "12.99", "our_price" : "12.99", "club_price" : "12.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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