The Sergeant's Matchmaking Dog
by Carrie Nichols
Small-Town Sweethearts - Book 5
Publisher: Harlequin Special Edition
Release Date: June 29, 2021
Reviewed by PJ
Let love—and a puppy—lead the way!
Former marine Gabe Bishop is focused on readjusting to civilian life. So the last thing he needs is the adorable kid next door bonding with his dog, Radar—and the boy’s guardian butting in. Addie Miller is afraid of dogs, so why does she keep coming around and making his heart melt? Soon, Gabe finds himself teaching Addie about the beauty of the human-canine bond…and becoming her shoulder to lean on. Could his new neighbors be everything Gabe never knew he needed?
Former marine Gabe Bishop is focused on readjusting to civilian life. So the last thing he needs is the adorable kid next door bonding with his dog, Radar—and the boy’s guardian butting in. Addie Miller is afraid of dogs, so why does she keep coming around and making his heart melt? Soon, Gabe finds himself teaching Addie about the beauty of the human-canine bond…and becoming her shoulder to lean on. Could his new neighbors be everything Gabe never knew he needed?
PJ's Thoughts:
Carrie Nichols is one of my favorite authors writing in the Harlequin Special Edition line. Her heartwarming stories, especially those in her Small-Town Sweethearts series, are filled with complicated relationships, sweet romance, emotional depth, hard-won happy endings, and some of the cutest kids around, who are much more than wallpaper.
In The Sergeant's Matchmaking Dog, Nichols gives us Gabe and Addie, characters trying to do their best while dealing with a whole lot of emotional baggage and determined to ignore each other. If it were left to them, they would probably never get together. Good thing they have Gabe's dog, Radar and Addie's little brother, Teddy to lead the way. Talk about adorable matchmakers.
Once again, Nichols immersed me into the lives of her characters from the start and kept me invested until the happy conclusion of their story. She touched on difficult topics keeping both Addie and Gabe from pursuing a relationship but did so with a deft hand, exploring survivor's guilt, parental addiction, and parental neglect in a way that conveyed the seriousness of the topics while still keeping the tone of the book hopeful. She allowed her characters to grow, find forgiveness, and heal, opening their hearts to the possibilities of love and a life together. She made me fall in love with all four of them, especially Radar, a very special dog with a whole lot of instinctive wisdom when it comes to the humans he loves.
While The Sergeant's Matchmaking Dog is the fifth book of a series and characters from previous books do make appearances, it can absolutely be read and enjoyed on its own. It has my enthusiastic recommendation, along with the other books in the series.
Have you read any of Carrie Nichols' books?
Do you read Harlequin Special Edition books? Do you have a favorite author writing in that line?
One randomly chosen person who posts a comments before 11:00 PM, June 23 will receive a signed, print copy of The Sergeant's Matchmaking Dog.
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