Steve N. Lee (1)

I should have never read this book...and yet I can't bring myself to regret a moment.
It's a story that is equal parts intense beauty and heart wrenching agony, all tied up with an adorable fur baby to boot. It's a story that has all the feels, and I do mean ALL THE FEELS, big enough to drag you around by the nose, like so many scattered scents on the wind to our beloved canines, and toss you amid the stars to frolic, to play, yet to utterly fall under its spell.

In it's simplest form, it's a story of life, love, and growing up, told through the eyes of Dog...aka Kai. His voice leads us through his volatile beginning, passed the hard moments that won't let go and to new starts, only to have things turn on their heads again and again. I won't go into detail (though I so dearly want to) because it would spoil the experience, but I can tell you, it's not a book you can go into lightly. It's not a story that can soon be forgotten. Though the story may be Fiction, the heart hidden between the pages glows with such intensity, you can feel it from start to finish.


**ecopy received for review; opinions are my own… (meer)

I should've known what I was getting my heart into...
...but I just couldn't stop myself.

Just as he did in the first book, author Steve N. Lee grabs you by the heartstrings and won't let you go. We open with Harley and his current master in a bad situation. He's trying everything a good dog knows to do, and even as good as he is, things are going to go much more wrong before they ever start to get better. He soon learns the world isn't as dog friendly, if you're traveling in a pack of one, but even with those setbacks, even with the world lashing out at him, he still has a heart of gold. He's still a GOOD DOG. He shows kindness to a stray pup...one that's awfully familiar (*hint hint*...~whispers~ from the first book!)...and when a human stranger reaches out a hand to him, he accepts it in kind, even to the point of risking his own life to safe theirs. All should be well from there then, right? Aww, I see you're new to his writing...

The human side of the story is just as tragic and yet just as beautiful. A mother and her son facing life unlike either was prepared for, depending on one another in ways they can't even fathom, and then at the worst of times...a dog in the road, or rather park. It's not what wanted at the time, but it just might be what they BOTH need in order to turn their lives around. Add in a health scare, multiply that by a few, and the confusion that things like that can bring to any family, let alone one living with, and loving someone severely on the spectrum...and you begin to see the lay of the land. Things get better, and things get worse...just as in life...but they still push through each day, growing, learning, loving, and when they can, laughing. It sounds like a simple thing, but it can be the very best sound in the world to your heart.

All in all, a wonderful story that will leave you in pieces, yet you wouldn't have it any other way. It was harsh, yet genuine. It seemed like their lot in life to struggle, and yet an angel on four legs was sent their way. I cried, several times, for the beauty of the tale, and my broken heart from the words spilling forth on the page like so many tears from my eyes. You wanted to help them understand so much. You wanted to be there for them to break their falls. You wanted to undo all the hurts, and losses, and bad times, leaving only the good behind...but if life shows us anything, you have to take the good with the bad because in the end it makes it that much sweeter.


**ecopy received for review; opinions are my own… (meer)

OH MAN!! I was as emotional as I could be as I rapidly read about Tess, she was a one woman wrecking machine and I would hate to be on the wrong side. In Poland, Tess had delayed her return to the states. I loved that Catalina, Elena's daughter wanted to take her ill mother to get treated in the UK and walked up and down the streets to get any kind of work, but no one had jobs but then a man offered her work to clean at his clinic, Once the attractive man got her into his car, he took her to a poor section and said that were repairing the dismal looking building, but he lied! As Tess and Elena looked for clues to track Cat, they were thrown into the underbelly of Poland, AND NOW I JUST HAVE TO READ BOOK TWO!!… (meer)