Two Good Dogs

SUSAN WILSON

Goodreads synopsis: Single mom Skye Mitchell has sunk her last dime into a dream, owning the venerable, if run-down LakeView Hotel in the Berkshire Hills. It’s here where she believes she’ll give her fourteen-year-old daughter Cody a better life. But being an innkeeper is more challenging than she imagined, and Cody still manages to fall in with the wrong crowd. In addition, Cody is keeping an earth-shattering secret that she’s terrified to reveal. The once loving, open girl has now become completely withdrawn, and Skye is both desperate and helpless to reach her.
When Adam March and his pit bull Chance check into the hotel, it becomes the first of many visits. Here in these peaceful mountains he finds an unexpected relief from his recent bereavement. He and the beleaguered innkeeper form a tentative friendship. Adam knows the struggles of raising a difficult teenager and Skye understands loneliness.
And then there is Mingo, a street kid with a pit bull dog of his own. When Cody discovers an overdosed Mingo, Adam takes the boy’s dog not just for safekeeping, but to foster and then rehome. But the dog isn’t the only one who needs saving. A makeshift family begins to form as four lost people learn to trust and rely on each other, with the help of two good dogs.

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, St. Martin's Griffin, 2018.

How acquired: Bought.

First line: Human emotion is a deeply fascinating thing for me.

My thoughts: I'm going to preface this review to tell you that I started writing it, then set it aside, then went out of town, then came back for a few days, and then remembered I'd never finished the review. And now unfortunately so much time has passed that I don't remember what else I wanted to say. So, my review is gonna be short and end abruptly!

This book started out as a bit of a challenge for me, and I considered DNFing it pretty quickly. The prologue is in first person, italicized, from the point of view of Chance, one of the two good dogs. Chapter one introduces us to Cody, with the narrative in third person, present tense. Ugh, my least favorite tense, but it's fine, I can deal with it. Then a few pages later, we meet Cody's mother, Skye, and the narrative changes to first person, past tense. Ok, we're going to be alternating. Fine, I can deal with it. Then chapter two, Adam is introduced, and the narrative changes to third person, past tense. Um, ok, so each of the main characters gets their own distinctive voice. And then on the next page Adam meets Skye, and the narrative suddenly shifts back to present tense, and then on the next page back to past tense. At this point I was only on page 20 and the narrative had changed four times. Just pick a style already!

Despite the specific narration for each of the main characters, there were several times when I wasn't sure for a few seconds who the focus had shifted to. Fortunately,the story was compelling enough that I stuck with it, and I enjoyed it.

And then looking at the author's other books, I realized this is a sequel to ONE GOOD DOG, which I have in my TBR pile, so I'm gonna have to pull it out to read soon, but not too soon.