UNKNOWN

This is a love story, but not the one you're expecting.

For Laura Holloway-single mom to a teenage boy, owner of a thriving pet-care business-certain aspects of life have always felt elusive. Lasting romance. A secure sense of self in a disorienting world. A home of her own in the countryside, with huge windows and land enough for llamas and goats.

Now in the throes of middle age, a dog attack brings an emotional reckoning, forcing her to face the darkest parts of herself. Will she always feel the stifling grip of fear and loneliness? Can she manifest the inner peace she truly yearns for? Will she ever feel comfortable in this frightening world of humans when animals are so much easier to understand?

And so the dance begins-a dance with her demons. Through vulnerable journal entries written over the course of three years, Holloway recounts a period of candid transformation, real-time.

From the attractive man who finds his way into her heart but remains emotionally unavailable, to the psychedelic journeys that bring her deeper into herself, unearthing the pain of her mother's early death and forgotten childhood trauma. Holloway invites her demons to be nurtured; she makes them cups of tea, then tucks them into bed, wiping tears from their contorted faces. She chooses to love them, one by one.

In doing so, she finally breaks old patterns and starts that tentative pilgrimage down a new path.

Yes, this is a love story. Not the one you're expecting, but the one you need: a story about loving yourself, and bringing your shadows back into the light.

Laura Holloway has been called Goat Girl, Animal Queen, and a Warrior Poet; semi-feral, fierce, and unabashedly "sensitive." She lives amidst the forest outside a small mountain town in Colorado, where she spends most of her time cleaning up after companion animals, frolicking through the woods, scribbling in her journals, and puttering around the farmstead sanctuary, daydreaming about butterflies and other magical beasts. She loves long walks in the woods with her pack of dogs, goats, llama, and the occasional enthusiastic cat, and never worries about looking like a total dork to her super-cool teenaged son. Laura aspires to master (and write about) the Art of Truly Loving Herself (really and for real), as well as loving this whole weird, wonderful world of whack-a-doodle Humanity. She also intends to lay off the chocolate, and to not take in any more cats. "Dancing with Demons: A Love Story" is her first proper book.