The Other Side of Fear Review - Now That's a Good Reminder

TITLE: The Other Side of Fear (XK9 Book 0)
AUTHOR: Jan Gephardt
PUBLISHER: Weird Sisters Publishing, LLC
PUBLISHING DATE: March 30, 2020

FROM GOODREADS: 

Does she have what it takes? 

Orangeboro police officer Pamela Gómez took her own dare. Now she’s headed planetside, to meet the challenge of her life. 

XK9s are the newest, most powerful tool in law enforcement, but these super-dogs need human partners. The Orangeboro Police Department has purchased ten XK9s. Only an elite corps of officers will be chosen as their handlers. 

Pam’s never had a dog, never left her home space station, and never thought of herself as an “elite” anything, but she took the courses, passed the tests, and made the cut. Now she’s an XK9 partner-candidate, bound for Planet Chayko, despite all her fears. 

Does she have what it takes to handle an XK9? The answer to that will take her places she never dared to dream about. 

MY THOUGHTS: A lot of you might remember how much I loved the first book in this series, What's Bred in the Bone.  I've been not-so-patiently awaiting the next installment.  So when the author reached out and offered me a copy of a prequel novella she was releasing in the interim, I jumped at the chance.  In fact, I might have even done a little happy dance. 

The Other Side of Fear happens prior to the events of the first book.  It basically explains how Pam, Shady's handler, came to meet Shady.  Pam is living with her boyfriend when the tale begins, who I must admit is a jerk.  He doesn't want her to take part in a pilot program with the XK9's and basically is secretly, or not so secretly, hopes she will fail.  Pam doesn't have a lot of confidence that after four weeks in the orientation program she will actually be picked by a dog, but she quickly falls in love with Shady.

I love how Gephardt can so easily express the bond between humans and dogs.  Because the XK9's can communicate with their handlers, the reader gets to see both sides of the bonding process.  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the bonds between the cadets and the dogs form.  Now as I have already read the first book, I knew who Shady eventually picked, but this was still a wonderful addition to the series.  It was fun getting a look at how the whole program started and being introduced to some of the familiar faces I met in What's Bred in the Bone.

And finally, there's a line in the book where Pam is told by Shady that the other side of fear is freedom.  I think we should all take a moment to think of that today.  The world is full of grief and trauma and I think a lot of us are living with the fear of something.  It definitely doesn't hurt to remember that there will be another side of this one day, and perhaps when it arrives, we'll all feel a bit more free.

Thanks to the author for the ARC of this novella.  Now I'm back to not-so-patiently waiting again.

RATING: 5 PAWS