You Lucky Dog
by Julia London
Blurb:
An accidental dog swap unleashes an unexpected love match in this new romantic comedy from New
Carly Kennedy's
life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going
through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly's sister convinces her to
foster Baxter--a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly
comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has
accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound,
she has reached the end of her leash.
When Max
Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel,
he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is
intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas
about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man
to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly
realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she
starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand
the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.
Themes: Contemporary
Rating: 3.25 stars
Heat Rating: 
Review:
Well
that was ummmm… interesting to say the least.
This story was one that I really found hard to say I liked it per se,
but it was definitely compelling enough that I also found it nearly impossible
to put down. I am a huge fan of the
historical writing of Ms. Julia London, but I always find it much harder to get
into her contemporary stories, though I am not sure why as they are always
written well and interesting, but this story was one where I didn’t much care
for the female lead and also didn’t much feel the emotional or romantic
connection between the characters until nearly the end of the story. Carly has been kicked a lot lately and she is
beyond down, but when she arrives home from the mother of long days to find
that the dog walker has mixed up her basset hound with another much different
dog, she doesn’t realize how much it will change her life. Conversely Max Sheffington doesn’t realize
the issue with his own beloved basset immediately but once he does, he is livid
and confused, but determined to care for the animal until his own sweet Hazel
comes back to him. When Carly and Max’s
worlds collide as they attempt to trade back their dogs, they strike up a
strange and reluctant friendship, though neither truly understands one
another. Carly’s life continues to
unravel in the strangest ways and Max has his own issues, but leaning on one
another for emotional support they are able to build a believable friendship,
but soon it becomes something more and they find themselves depending on the
other and dating. Then the shit just hits
the fan and their lives go off the rails, making them wonder if they even
have a chance at a future relationship.
So I have to admit I still don’t actually like Carly, despite her
becoming a little bit more likeable in the end of the story. She is opinionated, but the opinions are not
her own, controlling in the weirdest ways, and strict about the dumbest
things. Maybe it was just something
about the way she behaved with the dogs in the beginning or the way she let
people walk on her too much, but she seems like a characters that would not be
someone I can be friends with, and that has always been how I rate
characters. She did slowly learn to
stand up for herself, make herself heard and let others’ shit not affect her so
much so that she could deal with her own shit.
Don’t get me wrong, we all have those times where the world just seems
to be conspiring against us, but there was so much whining and not enough proactive
doing from her, that I found myself not a fan.
And compounding bad decisions with more just because she felt she needed
to do something was just not cool when it left so many people including herself
unhappy. Max was a weird guy to get to
know, very much in his head most of the time, but he was overall a decent guy
and one of those people that just seemed to move along in life letting things
happen around him and not dealing with the hard stuff until he was forced to. At
the same time he handles catastrophe much better and knows what he wants out of
life and goes for it in a way that made me like him much more, despite his
confusion over why he was actually attracted to the strange and outrageous
Carly. I loved both the Bassets in the
story and they were obviously both perfect for their masters and the perfect
outlet for them to come together again and again, giving them a high rating for
sidekick characters in my book. While
the laughter and weirdness of the relationship between Carly and Max kept
things interesting, it was hard to truly point out passion or emotional connection
unless they were directly pointing it out themselves. There were a few really great moments as they
comforted one another through hard times, but other than that, everything
seemed very superficial until the end. I
also just have to put out there that I hated Carly’s entire family and
hope that she is able to leave them to live their own lives for the most part
as they were dragging her down through 90% of this story. If you are into quirky, compelling and
interesting rom-com meet-cute stories this one will hit every button, though
there was plenty of serious and dark moments, but in the end there wasn’t a lot
of sensuality if you’re looking for those types of moments. I look forward greatly to the next London
release in her historical series and will guarantee it will be amazing, but I continue
to feel her contemporaries just aren’t my cup of tea, sadly.
*eARC provided by publisher (via
NetGalley) for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review. No compensation was provided.
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