And the Cuteness Continues

TITLE: The Puppy Who Knew Too Much (Dog Club Mystery #2)
AUTHOR: V.M. Burns
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Underground
PUBLISHING DATE: February 12, 2019

FROM GOODREADS: Lilly Echosby and her toy poodle Aggie find a fresh start in Chattanooga, Tennessee, spoiled by the scent of murder... 

Having solved the shooting death of her cheating husband, Lilly's left behind the drama of Lighthouse Dunes, Indiana, to start over in the hometown of her best friend, Scarlett "Dixie" Jefferson. As she gets settled in her new rented house, Lilly gives Aggie, short for Agatha Christie, her own fresh start by enrolling her in the Eastern Tennessee Dog Club, where Dixie is a trainer. 

But drama seems to hound Lilly like a persistent stray. Her cranky new neighbor appears unfamiliar with Southern hospitality and complains that Aggie barks too much and digs up his prized tulips. But what the poodle actually unearths is the buried body of a mysterious man who claimed ownership of the lost golden retriever Lilly recently rescued. Now it's up to Lilly and Dixie to try to muzzle another murderer... 

MY THOUGHTS: First of all, look at those cute puppies on the cover!  Don't you just want to cuddle and play with them all?  Okay, enough puppy love, on to the book.  The Puppy Who Knew Too Much is the second installment in the Dog Club Mystery Series and this is playing out to become one of my favorite cozy series. 

Lilly has made her move to Tennessee having finally left the drama of Indiana behind.  She is working on a new start and is looking forward to building a new life with her pup Aggie, along with her friends and family.  Lilly is busy looking for a new job as well as a new place to live.  She is also attending  obedience training for Aggie conducted by her best friend Dixie.  A deal too good to be true falls in her lap and Lilly lands the ideal rental.  However, it's not long until a new death has been uncovered and once again Lilly is in the thick of things.

As I mentioned before, I think this series has some of the most interesting characters I've ran into in quite a while. I love that Lilly is building a new life for herself and Burns does a great job of having Lilly's adult children pop in from time to time to visit their mother.  This book also introduces a new canine friend in the form of a Golden Retriever who her daughter rescues.  Lilly and her friend Dixie, who is still larger than life and a blast to book, try to figure out what is going on in Lilly's new neighborhood and as one might expect, chaos follows.  We also get introduced to a possible new love interest for Lilly, Red.  Red seems like a good match but clearly neither want to rush into anything.  It also probably doesn't help that I imagine Red as Robert Taylor from Longmire.  I do miss my Longmire. 

So overall I love the way this series is pulling together and developing.  As you know, I've already read the third installment and hope to have my review up soon.  Lilly is a wonderful addition to some of my favorite characters and I'm sure she and Dixie will find some more trouble soon.

I also want to add that I was able to talk to Burns via Goodreads and am glad to know there are more installments already in the works.

I received this book from Lyrical Underground and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

RATING: 4 PAWS

Read A Series in a Month Challenge Update

So I wanted to do a quick update to just let everyone know that on Saturday, the last day of November, I managed to complete this challenge!  I already have my review up for the first in the series and you can find it HERE.  I will be posting the ones for the 2nd and 3rd later this week but needless to say, they were both 4/5 paw reads.  I'm so anxious to see if this series will continue.  I have really become quite attached to the characters and want to know where everyone is headed.

Many thanks to Michelle and Berls of Because Reading for motivating me to finally read this series!

Cuteness Overload!

TITLE: In the Dog House (Dog Club Mystery #1)
AUTHOR: V.M. Burns
PUBLISHER:  Lyrical Underground
PUBLISHING DATE: August 21, 2018

FROM GOODREADS:  

Lilly may be losing a husband but she's gaining a toy poodle. That could be seen as a win-win, since her new adopted pooch Aggie (named after Agatha Christie) is cute and adorable, and Lilly's dirty dog of a spouse is cheating on her with a blond bimbo—except for one problem: Albert Echosby’s just been murdered, and Lilly is the number-one suspect. 

With the cops barking up the wrong tree, it's a good thing her best friend Scarlett "Dixie" Jefferson from Chattanooga, Tennessee, decided to take a break from the dog club circuit to pay a visit, along with her own prize pair of poodles. With help from Dixie, her defense attorney daughter, and a blue-eyed man in blue with a K-9 partner, Lilly is determined to collar the real killer. But when a second murder occurs, it's clear they're dealing with one sick puppy . . .

MY THOUGHTS: So I had all three books in this series and I always wanted to make time for them, so it was a perfect time to do so with the "Read a Series in a Month Challenge."  In this first installment, we are getting to know all the players.  Lilly is newly separated and in the process of getting a divorce when we first meet her.  She has spent her entire adult life taking care of her husband and raising her children and feels she is being traded in for a younger, newer model.  However, before the ink gets a chance to dry, Lilly's soon-to-be-ex ends up dead and Lilly is the prime suspect.  Her college best friend shows up in town to help Lilly and she just happens to be a dog trainer and this is where the dogs enter. She gives Lilly a poodle who soon becomes her new sidekick and all of them together, with Lilly's attorney daughter thrown in, set out to prove Lilly's innocence.

I could tell right off I was really going to enjoy the characters in this series.  Lilly is an older adult starting her life over and I found myself feeling very sympathetic toward her.  Also, never having a puppy before, it was fun to see Lilly increase her knowledge of dogs and also grow to realize how much this little pup can help her as she starts a new chapter of her life.  Dixie, Lilly's friend, is a very colorful character and was even compared to a larger-than-life Dolly Parton as one point.  The mystery was extremely interesting and not too easy to solve.  I had my suspicions but the book also kept me on my toes.

Having read several of the author's Mystery Bookshop books and not being solely convinced that I enjoyed them as much as I wanted, I know why I was hesitant to start this series.  That being said, I LOVE this series and can't wait to read the rest of them.  If you like cozies and pets, then get to reading!

RATING: 4 PAWS