Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Needing a change of scene, Griffin Burke moves from Brisbane to Coolum Beach to start a new job. The beautiful white sand, aqua-coloured ocean, blue skies, and summer breezes are everything he longs for. What he finds is a mud-covered dog, lost and hungry, with a nametag and a phone number.
Dane Hughes is stuck in Surfers Paradise at a week-long work conference when he gets a phone call from his distraught mother. His dog, his fur baby, Wicket, has run away. Unable to leave and feeling helpless and miserable, he gets a text from a guy. “I think I found your dog…”
Griffin and Dane start talking, and Griffin agrees to look after Wicket until Dane can collect him. With a few days left before his new job starts, Griffin takes Wicket on some coastal adventures and sends Dane photos of their fun, and so the start of something new and kind of wonderful begins.
Griffin might have moved to Coolum in search of a new life, but what he finds is so much more. What he gets to keep just might take some four-legged help.
This was just what I needed after a pretty angsty book and it’s going into my “read after a bad day” folder on my iPad. Griffin has just moved to Coolum Beach and on a hiking trip ends up giving water to a cute dog. When he returns the next day, it’s raining and miserable and the poor dog is still there, now wetter and dirtier. Griffin is a nice person, so he takes the dog, Wicket, and contacts the owner from the phone number on the tag.
Poor Dane. He’s Wicket’s owner, and he has been frantic. He left Wicket with his parents while he went away on a work conference and the little escape artist managed to open the screen door and disappear. Dane’s parents are so upset and Wicket is no where to be found. In swoops Griffin, to say, “Yes, I found a dog. Can you tell me about him?” And so begins the friendship turned more of Griffin and Dane. And Wicket the dog, who is far from the parent’s house.
Griffin offers to care for Wicket until Dane returns from his business trip and does so in style, taking him to restaurants and parks, hiking and out for doggie desserts, all the while sending pictures and updates to Dane. It was adorable. Dane and Griffin get to know each other via text message and phone calls and I loved that as well. Sometimes it was awkward and adorable. “And if you were looking-“I cringed at how ridiculous this was. “-and used dating aps, would you use Tinder? Or maybe Grindr?” I buried my face in the sofa cushion and rolled my eyes and wanted to die.”
The story basically is the adventures of Wicket and Griffin and then adding in Dane. Friendly, flirty and then on to more. They do move pretty fast but they admit it. “He told me he recognized we were moving pretty fast but he liked it, and I told him I agreed. Wholeheartedly.” The story is told in alternating first person point of view and I appreciated that as well. I like getting to hear both sides.
There is no angst in this book, no conflict. It’s just a gentle, soft, fluffy story with a meet-cute and a lovely dog. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Narration by Joel Leslie is perfect, as usual. He gives different voices to Dane and Griffin, making it easy to differentiate between the two and his upbeat tone fits very well.
Cover art, showing Wicket with Griffin, is simple and I felt is conveyed the feel of the story well.
Sales Links: Amazon | Audible | Audiobooks
Audio Book Details:
Listening Length: 6 hours and 30 minutes
Audible Audio, 7 pages
Published July 30th 2019 by Tantor Audio (first published January 31st 2018)
Original Title Finders Keepers
ASINB07VHJHR1L
setting Australia
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Shattered by their devastating breakup, Detective Levi Abrams and PI Dominic Russo find themselves at war right when they need each other most. While Dominic is trapped in a vicious cycle of addiction, Levi despairs of ever catching the Seven of Spades. The ruthless vigilante’s body count continues to climb, and it’s all Levi can do to keep up with the carnage.When Levi’s and Dominic’s paths keep crossing in the investigation of a kidnapping ring with a taste for mutilation, it feels like history repeating itself. Thrown together by fate once again, they reluctantly join forces in their hunt for the mastermind behind the abductions.
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Jude and Asa are at the top of my favorites right now. And their son, Billy—not every author can create a precocious five-year-old and keep him from being annoying, but between Lily Morton’s writing and Joel Leslie’s delivery of Billy’s adorable voice, I’m sold on Bill as my favorite child of 2019.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 