Life on the Leash
Victoria Schade
Cora is a successful dog trainer who thrives on organisation. Her rescue pit bull counts as the man of her life, and she’s content writing a blog about best-practice training techniques. However a run in with an incredibly sexy client who she just can’t seem to say no to, as well as a dog-in-need with a cute guy in tow means that Cora is starting to rethink her priorities.
This is a lighthearted romance with a spot of dog-loving thrown in! Cora’s a likable enough character who creates laughter with her descriptions of dogs-gone-wrong. There are sad parts to the novel too, but nothing particularly cry worthy. If you’re looking for a beach-side read, this novel could be it. This novel is decidedly chaste, so don’t go looking for sex scenes.
From the blurb, I expected that this novel would be all about how Cora copes with being a dog trainer on TV, but it’s not that at all. Most of the novel is taken up by her escapades with her clients and her friendship with the irrepressible Maggie. When I tried to explain the plot to my fiancee I found myself struggling for relevant details of the plot – because normally I wouldn’t go for a romance that doesn’t have a unique protagonist (eg. The Kiss Quotient).
Go into this novel expecting a light read that will take you around 2-3 hours. You might even get some dog training tricks out of it – the author is a well known dog health expert, so you can trust what is written here. I’m giving this 3 stars.
Allen & Unwin | 1st December 2018 | AU$29.99 | paperback
I read about half this novel while waiting for the action to begin. I’m sorry, I just don’t find it that entertaining that she forgot nipple pads, and whether breast milk has DNA in it. I continued reading after a month or two had passed and still felt underwhelmed. The ending promised to have a little more action in it, but in the end it felt rushed and unfinished. I needed significantly more shadowing throughout the novel to feel convinced about the betrayals…
The blurb promises that Simon will have to hunt for his teacher, but the majority of the novel is really about getting to know Simon and understand his relationship with the world. I actually really enjoyed Simon’s unique perspective. It’s exactly how I would imagine thoughts to be of a mildly autistic child (in my limited, and purely academic knowledge that is). I liked each of the small parts that came together to understand his worldview, and how he saw other people and imagined his insides reacting to different situations.
I’m surprised they managed to catch the killer as they were so busy swearing at each other and cracking stupid jokes. I never got Carrie’s motivation for being a cop and her naivety and bright-eyed shine weren’t authentic. It seemed to me that there was a huge focus on the previous child serial killer, but I struggled to work out what the gory details really were.
I found this novel lacking and predictable. Of COURSE she’s going to fall for an inconvenient guy. OF COURSE she’s suddenly going to gain a backbone. Theo is a perfectly fine protagonist, but she’s just not believable. Her behaviour, particularly when she betrays someone close to her, is just repulsive. I couldn’t get behind her quick changes in personality and pathetic excuses either.
Bel is a likeable character, but it does feel a bit like ‘insta-love’. She falls really quickly for a boy she knows nothing about. I find it noble that she doesn’t care what Micah has done, but at the same time – wake up! Your own life should have tipped you off that nothing is what it seems.
This was an average novel with a meandering storyline that had me losing interest about half way through (and thus pausing to write this review). BB was a lovable, cuddly protagonist and it was certainly comforting to read a fat-positive novel for once. However, she IS unhealthily fat and I’m not sure I can give completely positive feedback to a novel that initially promotes it.
Oh Joni, why are you so blind? Why are you so stubborn? Why can’t you just let things go and see further than the end of your nose? You certainly don’t fly higher because your feet are firmly on the ground and your head is either fixed on them or glaring into someone’s face.
You don’t need to have read the first novel in the series. You don’t need to have read any of the series in the middle to the novel you’ve gotten your hands on! Evanovich sets the scene of Stephanie very simply at the beginning of every novel. In the past, I read 
This is the second novel in a row that I have read about food. Clearly I was feeling hungry when I went to the GoodWill to pick out some new holiday reading. The feel of this novel was quite different to the last one though, because here there are more secrets being hidden. Also the life of a small business owner chef is very different to that of a personal chef. When I go out to a meal, I want to order something I couldn’t make for myself – and the things described in these delectable pages were certainly of that nature.