Triple Dog Dare by K. S. Brooks and Stephen Hise

If a book is written by either Hise or Brooks, you can be confident of a really good read. Put the two together, and you can be confident of an even better one: double the excellence!

These two authors have talent, skill, imagination, a solid sense of humour, and the ability to provide great entertainment.

Triple Dog Dare is a wonderfully light-hearted and funny story packed with ingredients: some hanky-panky, misunderstandings, an eensy bit of romance,  a very gentle fun-poking at the dog-showing arena, but it’s also a story that manages to laugh at itself as well as with others.

It’s all a lovely embroilment of who is fooling who and who is going to be found out. Dogs—as you would expect—feature highly in this. One in particular. Well two. Or perhaps three… You could almost…almost…say they are the top-dog characters. They manage to annoy, please, enthrall, delude, irritate, endear, and just generally be the scene-stealing, show-stopping little darlings they always are.

This is witty, engaging, sharp, great fun, and written with tongue in cheek. The only disappointment was coming to the end!

Border Collie Christmas by Nancy Warren

I’m sure there are few women out there who don’t like to sit down for half an hour with a warm and mushy little romance, especially if it features the cutist little puppy.

I’m a sucker for any story if its main character is four-legged, wet-nosed, and waggy-tailed.  And this doesn’t disappoint.  When a little Border Collie puppy ends up, wet, hungry, and very sorry for himself on Erin’s doorstep (who herself is unhappy and miserable), little does he know that he’s going to change not only her life, but that of a little five-year-old girl and her good-looking (this is a romance novella, of course he is!) father.

I liked Nancy’s style—her writing is tinged with humour, she injects emotion and feelgood into the story and you reach the last page with a satisfied ‘awww’.  Lovely.

Angelo's Journey by Leland Dirks

If you love dogs then this is a must-read. If you are old enough to remember The Incredible Journey, then this short tale will tug at the heartstrings.

It tells the tale of an intelligent border collie who goes missing for 5 1/2 weeks.  The author, the distraught owner, can only imagine what happened to him in that time and how he found his way back home, but knowing this beautiful dog's character and disposition, Leland conceives a poignant diary of Angelo's journey back home – the people he touched, the emotions he evoked, the lives he changed, and the hope he brought;  all these things, by his presence, his silence, his gentleness, his understanding and the simple innate desire of a dog's need to please.

                                      

I defy anyone to read this charming book and not be touched.  It's quite simply one of those books which you just don't want to come to an end.