The Dogs of Avalon, a new book by award-winning author Laura Schenone tells the incredible tale of greyhounds and the international network of women who fought to save them.

Island resident Ann Shannon is featured, as Schenone credits her with starting the movement back when she was a young kennel maid in 1959, standing up to racing managers who put retired dogs down or sold them to laboratories, and insisting on finding homes for the dogs.

Today she still works with the Greyhound Aid League.

Schenone came to write the book after adopting an Irish sight hound and discovering a remarkable and little-known fight to gain justice for animals.

Greyhounds, streaks of lightning, were bred to be the fastest dogs on earth.

Yet for decades thousands were destroyed, abandoned and abused each year when they couldn’t run fast enough.

Scrappy Marion Fitzgibbon, whose empathy for animals made her relentless, became obsessed with saving these dogs, despite the overwhelming power of dog-racing proponents, when she became head of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Along with an American greyhound rescuer, a foxhunter’s wife, a British Lady and a powerful German animal advocate, she fought to create a sanctuary where animals heal and thrive.

The pioneering work of these remarkable women is part of a global movement to close race tracks, including Massachusetts’s Wonderland, and find homes for these gentle but misunderstood dogs.

In this David versus Goliath story (including the rescue of her own dog, Lily), Schenone takes us into a complex world of impassioned people who stood up for millions of animals.

This remarkable story is perfect for readers who enjoyed Peter Singer’s works, John Grogan’s ’Marley And Me’, and Steven Kotler’s ’A Small Furry Prayer’.

The book has already received excellent reviews from critics including Publishers Weekly which said: ’Schenone’s dramatic account . . . is truly moving. . . . Animal-welfare advocates and dog lovers are sure to appreciate Schenone’s reportage.’

’The Dogs of Avalon-The Race to Save Animals in Peril’ by Laura Schenone, and is published by W W Norton and Company.