I’m a pretty fast reader and, if the book is top notch and I have the time, I can blow through 300+ pages in no time. Of course, there are, on rare occasions these days, those books that are above and beyond top notch and all the reading speed I possess folds back on me as the thickness on the right-hand side of the book diminishes. I begin to slow because I simply don’t want the book to end.

That’s been the case with The Dust of 100 Dogs, the debut novel by A. S. King. I started it to day and, reluctantly, I finished it today. I feel lost, set adrift amidst a becalmed sea, devoid of pirate ships and Spanish Galleons and tropical islands hiding buried treasure. I miss Emer with her Irish temper and Saffron with a hundred dogs in her past and her future hanging in the balance.

And I miss the Dog Facts.

Though I don’t miss Fred.

And ya know, to be honest, I think she’d of been better off with David. But that, of course, would have changed the story.

They say this is a YA novel (Young Adult for those of you not in the publishing slang loop) and if so, I wish they’d had this sort of thing available when I was YA.

If you want the same-old-same-old reading crap, Cussler has a new one (the cover of which is ripped off from a really good novel, Freezing Point by Karen Dionne) and I’m sure Patterson has yet another cut-n-paste novel making the rounds.

But, if you want something beautifully different, a story unlike the everyday boring fare, a tale that will carry you to faraway places, The Dust of 100 Dogs should be at the very top of your book shopping list.