#BookReview: A New Leash On Life by Patricia Sands

A Moving Ending. Yet again packing quite a bit of story into such scant page count, this is a great ending to this series that gives an epilogue of our dog breeder Leslie’s adventures while also telling a compelling story of life after your long time husband has been diagnosed with dementia. It *also* manages to spend the most time out of the United States than any other book, and only Collar Me Crazy, book 2 of the series, spends more time outside of Dragonfly Cove itself.

And yet the tale here is still absolutely centered around Dragonfly Cove and this most recent litter of puppies from Leslie. Here, Chance gets his time to star as the central puppy of the story – and yes, once again (as is so often in this series) he tends to steal the scene most times he’s around.

Again using an elderly main character (as the previous book, Teacher’s Pet did), this tale does a remarkable job of showing both blood and found family and how they all come together. Truly a great tale in a small package, and yet again more evidence of how page count doesn’t give any indication of just how good a story is, with this one clocking in just over 150 pages.

Very much recommended.

This review of A New Leash On Life by Patricia Sands was originally written on January 1, 2024.

#BookReview: Unleashed Melody by Julie Carobini

Most Hallmarkie Book In Series. In a series built basically specifically for dog lovers who also enjoy women’s fiction/ romance type tales, this is perhaps the single most “Hallmark Movie” like book in the entire series – and it actually sticks out from the series because of it. More self contained than many of the other books in the series, it really works quite well as a corporate/ office type romance that happens to involve owning and running a boutique hotel in a small beach town. But it also has some of the “problems” (according to some) of many Hallmark movies – including the seeming inevitable third act drama. Still, the tale really is quite solid in itself, and as one of the shorter books in the series it *really* packs quite a bit of story into the few (sub 150) pages it has.

Very much recommended.

This review of Unleashed Melody by Julie Carobini was originally written on January 1, 2024.