For twenty-six-year-old rent boy Chance Matthews, surviving day-to-day in San Francisco is difficult enough. Then an ill-fated road trip to Wyoming to search for his biological father throws his life into a tailspin. When a string of catastrophes leaves him stranded and desperate, help comes from the last person he’d expect. His knight in shining armor is everything he could want and then some, but Chance is sure a man like that would never want someone like him. That’s the stuff of fairy tales, and he stopped believing in those a long time ago. 

This male-male contemporary love story is the ninth book in Alexa Land’s best-selling Firsts and Forever series, but each book can stand alone, so jump in anywhere. 

Review

This love story is pretty angsty and yet I loved it. I think because the angst was about the lives of each hero and not the relationship itself, the level of angst worked for me.

Chance and Finn are so good to each other. Chance finds himself in one mess after another as he follows his longing for a real parent. 

There is a lot of plot and twists in this one to keep us busy but so much good couple time and healing that this becomes a great love story.

Finn and Chance fumble a ton in their relationship but this is a happily ever after to believe in and root for.

Rescuing Finley is a beautiful story about healing, second chances and the unconditional love of dogs. The best part for me was that Finley the dog was given his own point of view and he had a lot of thoughts that made me teary. I wish more writers would do that. I’d rather see the world from the dogs POV than through the eyes of some obnoxious human character.

Finley is a sweet but rowdy young golden retriever mix whose owner joins the military and leaves Finley with his mom who is not a dog person. Sad things happen and Finley ends up in a shelter, confused and depressed. His anguish is soooo hard to read but the author doesn’t linger there for long. Finley is chosen to join a prison program where female inmates train homeless dogs to become companions for soldiers with PTSD. He is paired with Amy, a young lady who messed up her life with a meth habit and poor choices. They both thrive in this program but will Amy be able to part with Finley when it’s graduation day?

The book is written pretty simply and cleanly (I later discovered Dan Walsh is a Christian author). There’s no fancy prose, humorous dialogue or action sequences that’ll make you hold onto your undies or whatnot but it worked for me. Sometimes simple is just right. When I say simple I don’t mean boring. If it were boring I’d tell you. But if you are not interested in dogs, dog training or the healing powers of love and dogs, this one might not be for you. There’s a lot of dog time here, probably why I loved it so much, as well as time spent going over training protocols, the prison dog training program and humane society intake rules, etc. Here and there I found the author repeating himself. This might’ve been more apparent to me because I was listening on audio and listening with my full attention for once!

Somehow this book manages to tackle difficult situations but it never gets too dark. There is a deep dive into the life of a soldier once he’s returned home from war and seen atrocities that follow and haunt but instead of dwelling in that dark space, this story is about how one man pulls himself out of it and decides to live his life again. The end wraps everything up in a nifty little bow which might’ve just gone a wee bit over the edge for me but you may or may not think so depending on your outlook on life.



Anyway, it’s a lovely read and the narration by Hillary Huber is excellent and very professionally done. She hits all the right notes with her performance and I have no complaints there.

*I received this book from Tantor Media. I hope they don’t regret it!

           This was a sweet, simple love story about an introverted man who has just adopted a 7-year old girl and a man who has devoted his life to the care of animals. Neither man has realized they are missing something in their life that would make them whole. Rory Wilde really gets a person's passion for animals, all the dogs are well drawn out for the reader. The adopted child was sweet enough but we were given absolutely no backstory that would have made her situation more meaningful. Wilde didn't dig too deep into many of the parts of this story that could have given it more punch.
          Everything about these two men and how they connect was just too darn easy. What about their parents? How do they feel about this budding romance? I'm being picky because this tale had some good bones but it was missing muscle

It was a nice read. Looking forward to read the next book.