Let’s Read Good Books

My Thoughts:

May contain spoilers

I saw the dog on the cover and snatched this up from the library. I’ll read almost anything with a dog or horse or cat on the cover. This is a great marketing tool that appeals to me, with the only downside being that the animal isn’t featured enough, or it meets a terrible fate. That will land the author on a do not read ever again list, and Patrick Ness, I’m speaking directly to you.

I was so charmed by Dog Days of Summer. I’m going to try to not delve into spoiler territory, so I’m going to be quite vague about the plot. This is basically your big city girl meets down to earth country boy and they have a sweet romance and fall in love. Done to a T. From their first meeting, Maple, fresh from New York with her specialty in veterinarian cardiology, and Ford, small town heartthrob, sparks and humor fly when Ford brings his grandmother and her robotic companion animal to the clinic Maple has just started working at for treatment.

After treating the mechanical dog, Maple wants nothing more than to hop on the next plane back home. But something keeps her rooted in Bluebonnet. Her high power divorce attorney parents, themselves divorced in a less than friendly separation, have always made Maple feel pressured to follow their career path. They make her feel stressed, and in her efforts to appease both of them, she is never really herself. Suffering from social anxiety, she struggles with the people side of veterinary medicine. But as she gets to know Ford and the people in Bluebonnet, she starts to feel something she’s never felt before: contentment.

This is a sweet romance. There are only a few kisses between the couple, but their banter and their interactions made this book fly by. They both have emotional baggage to overcome, and after consuming one homemade pie after another, they realize that some things are worth taking a chance on. Everything about this romance appealed to me; Maple, who’s looking for a place she belongs, Ford, who’s looking for someone he can trust, and even Lady Bird, the therapy who just wants everyone around her to be happy.

Dog Days of Summer is the first in the Comfort Paws series, and I am hooked.

There is a novella included at the end of book – Sit Stay Heal. Due in part to its short length, I didn’t find it as emotionally appealing, and I felt it deserved a full length novel. Featuring one of my favorite tropes, second chance at love, with a small town boy who makes it good, I really wish it had been longer.

Rating: 5 Stars

From the back of the book:

The Hill Country is no match for Manhattan. Or is it? 

The only thing standing between Maple Leighton and her dream of becoming a veterinarian? Just one year in small-town Bluebonnet, Texas. But fulfilling the conditions of her scholarship won’t be easy, especially once buttoned-up Maple learns why she was left the quaint practice. Plus, she has to contend with know-it-all town pediatrician Ford Bishop! Gregarious Ford’s clearly suspicious of Maple’s motives. But as his suspicion fades—and as Maple makes friends throughout town with the help of a gorgeous golden retriever—the attraction sparking between the unlikely duo can’t be denied. There’s just something about the Texas sun that might give these two opposites a new leash on love!