By Christine A. Baker
About the Book
During the height of COVID, Dr. Artemis Nicche was fighting to save lives at Sterling Hospital in Connecticut. But her unraveling began long before the pandemic — the day her brother fell from a tree and died when she was eleven.
After leaving medicine, Artemis is drawn to a struggling animal shelter where the creatures in her care begin reshaping her understanding of grief, love, and purpose. As she transforms the small shelter into a sanctuary, she slowly learns to forgive herself — and discovers the life she was always meant to live.
Narrated by Lucy, her beloved cat speaking from beyond, Raising Artemis is a luminous novel about healing, and the extraordinary ways animals guide us home.
Raising Artemis is, at its core, a story about the kind of grief that rearranges an existence — the quiet, brutal, raw grief of the loss of loved animals who were witnesses to a soul throughout the various chapters of life. It follows Artemis, a woman coming apart at the seams from a life fraught with grief, and the eventual healing and awakening.
The story unfolds around the two cats who refuse to let her disappear: one she’s mourning with a tenderness that still startles her, and one who arrives like a small, insistent heartbeat reminding her she’s still here.
For every pet parent who has ever wondered if their beloved companions still linger close, this book leans into the truth we feel in our bones: they do. As fiercely as they loved us in life, they continue to guide us from beyond, slipping into our days in ways only the heart can interpret. This story honors that wordless communion — that strange, sacred language shared between humans and the beings who don’t need words to understand.
Christine has beautifully and creatively written a love letter to the animals who stay, who light our path long after their physical being has left the earth, and who teach us, again and again, how to find our way back to ourselves.
Coleen A. Ellis, Pet Loss Pioneer, Author & Speaker
The Story Behind the Story
I wrote Raising Artemis during the stillness of Covid, when the world outside grew quiet but the voices of memory and imagination grew louder. The animals who have shaped my life found their way into these pages. The book is my homage to them — companions, guardians, and teachers.
I’ve always felt a special connection to animals. As an only child, I imagined I wasn’t truly alone — because Sam, my black Labrador, was my older brother, and Charlie, a mischievous Siamese cat, was my younger one. They were family, confidants, and guides. That bond has lasted a lifetime, shaping how I see the world and how I write.
Raising Artemis is a story born of that connection — a novel written in gratitude, love, and remembrance of the animals who walk beside us and lead us forward.
Character Profiles
While Raising Artemis is fiction, the animal characters are rooted in real companions who shaped my life. Photos accompany their profiles — offering a glimpse behind the story and honoring the souls who inspired it.
The Feline Narrator
Lucy
Lucy isn’t just a cat — she is the story’s witness and guide. With blue eyes that catch light like questions and a purr that steadies more than nerves, she sees what humans miss, even when she doesn’t fully understand it herself.
She arrives exactly when she is needed, though whether by fate, choice, or something larger remains a mystery — even to her. Utterly feline (devoted to sunlit windows and deeply offended by closed doors), Lucy carries a responsibility she never expected: to observe, to question, and to speak when it matters most.
“Humans think we simply exist beside them. But sometimes — and I’m still learning when — we are meant to witness.”
The Wise Observer
Phoebe
Phoebe moves through the world with quiet intensity, noticing patterns others overlook. Thoughtful and deliberate, she carries a calm awareness of the unseen threads connecting all living things.
She appears at moments of transition, as if instinctively drawn to thresholds where choices must be made. In her stillness, she teaches the art of listening deeply — of trusting intuition and honoring the wisdom found in quiet.
“The answers you seek are written in the silence between your thoughts. I am only here to help you remember how to read them.”
The Joyful Heart
Maggie
If Jessie is steady earth, Maggie is sunlight — resilience wrapped in joy. She greets each day as possibility, finding wonder in the smallest moments and reminding those around her that joy is not frivolous; it is necessary.
With boundless enthusiasm, she pulls everyone back into the present — into movement, laughter, and the simple courage to delight in the world again. Through her, healing looks less like solemnity and more like play.
“Every morning is permission to begin again — to chase sunbeams and remember that light still exists.”
The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jack
In Artemis’s memory, Jack is forever climbing trees — caught in the golden light of childhood before she understood that bodies can break and brothers can fall. He remains gap-toothed and fearless, suspended in the moment before everything changed.
His death was the first fracture in her world, a grief she buried so deeply it became part of her foundation. Frozen in time, he lingers not just as memory, but as unfinished love waiting to be released.
“I never got to grow up — but I’m still here, waiting for you to let me go.”
The Human
Artemis Elizabeth Nicche
Still reeling from a loss that split her life into before and after, Artemis is a woman who once trusted logic and control — until grief stripped those certainties away. What remains is raw, uncertain, and searching.
Lucy’s arrival begins to shift something. Artemis slowly learns to listen beyond reason, to trust instincts long buried, and to recognize meaning in the quiet spaces she once ignored. Her journey is not about forgetting, but about learning how to carry love differently.
“I thought I knew what love looked like, what loss meant. But Lucy is teaching me there are languages I never learned to speak.”
The Grounded Soul
Jessie
Jessie moves through the world with quiet strength and steady grace. Her presence is grounding — a reminder that sometimes the greatest gift is simply showing up and remaining.
There is patience in her gaze, the kind that comes from watching, listening, and loving without condition. She teaches by example: how to stay rooted when everything else shifts, how to find calm in the rhythm of ordinary days.
“Peace isn’t the absence of storms — it’s knowing your roots run deep enough to endure them.”
The Bridge Between Worlds
Sam
Sam lives at the edge of two worlds — sanctuary and wildness. One paw rests in the comfort of home, the other reaches toward something older that calls from beyond the fence.
There is depth in him, a quiet instinct that remembers how to read the wind and trust what cannot be explained. He moves between worlds with ease, reminding those around him that love and freedom are not opposites.
“Home isn’t a place you find — it’s the courage to be fully yourself, wild heart and all.”
The Tender Spirit
Linus
Linus, Lucy’s brother, carried his wisdom in silence. Where Lucy was bold, he was watchful — bright blue eyes holding more than he ever voiced.
Before Artemis rescued them, he endured abuse that left lasting scars. Trust did not come easily again, except with her. Indoors and near to safety, Linus offered what he knew best: steady presence, curling close through long nights without asking for attention.
Through him, Artemis learned that healing is often quiet — a slow, deliberate return to trust.
“Not all souls need to roar to be heard. Some speak their truth in whispers.”