An accidental dog swap unleashes an unexpected love match in this new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Julia London. Carly Kennedy’s life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly’s sister convinces her to foster Baxter–a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly comes home late … When Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash.
When Max Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel, he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.
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I’ve long been a fan of Julia London’s books– both her historicals and contemporaries–and this one didn’t disappoint. The characters were quirky but very relatable. And I love a book with a sweet dog. This one had two! An enjoyable light-hearted, read.
This was such a cute read. I loved the cover and decided to take a chance and I was not disappointed.
You Lucky Dog has a very cute “meet-cute” and I loved the main characters, Carly and Max, whose families were kind of a mess. Carly’s family was in my opinion a bit over the top, but I adored Max’s relationship with his brother and of course I loved Baxter and Hazel. Just an easy and fun read.
OH MY GOODNESS. So witty, so cute, so perfect. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves dogs and/or romantic comedies. Julia London has the best sense of humor!
You Lucky Dog by Julia London
1st book in the Lucky Dog series. Contemporary romantic comedy.
Carla and Max each use a dog Walker in their busy lives. Until one day they come home and they have the wrong basset hound! They meet to exchange and soon their lives are tumbled together.
An adorable story with very personable dogs, owners that are attracted to each other, and messy job and family complications.
I loved Hazel and Baxter, the two dogs. They pretty much stole the limelight of every scene they were in.
I think Carla should have been looking for alternatives way sooner. I liked that Max learned from his autistic brother that book learning does not mean he has all the answers.
Entertaining and hea so a win for me.
A sweet romance that touches on several real-life serious issue, You Lucky Dog was a rewarding read, especially for dog lovers!
I listened to the audio book and found it most enjoyable.
Great work by Julia London and Narrator Courtney Patterson.
You Lucky Dog is the perfect book if your favorite supporting cast includes hounds. I think pets add such fun and humor to books! And okay. The humans in it had a little more page time.
Carly and Max use the same dog walker and the ole switcheroo forces a meet-cute. Of course, one is a little high-strung and the other feels like there’s an easy fix.
Both characters come with a lot of personal hardships that they’re facing or overcoming. It certainly doesn’t help that his dad and her mom started a relationship in the meantime! But I think one of my favorite things about this book was the neurodiversity rep with Max’s brother.
For me a story with dogs just seems to be a happier one. There are a lot of laugh out loud moments. Wonderful characters; the ‘brain scientist and the publicist’ . Just when they find each other the universe throws out mountains they need to climb and try overcome. Definitely shed some tears towards the end…
Somehow I expected this book to follow the similar formula. No so – The characters are amusing and funny. Yes it has a happy ending but the route didn’t go as I expected.
Except for Cujo, what book with dogs isn’t fun? I’ve read the author’s historic romance, cowboy romance and now this contemporary romance and have enjoyed them all. With quirky characters, lively banter and a fun plot, you can’t go wrong.
When dog walker, Brant gets arrested the two basset hounds that he walks get returned to the wrong home. After being laid off from her job at a big advertising firm in Austin, Carly Kennedy dreams to move to NYC, but until she finds a job there is struggling to find clients in Austin to pay her bills and after her sister Mia, was gifted with Baxter a basset hound by their mother and poor Mia can’t even manage her three small children, Carly took him home. But after a particularly frustrating day, she comes home to find not Baxter, but a female dog. It takes her several days until she tracks down her dog, at the home of Dr. Tobias Maxwell (Max) Sheffington, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas. The dogs, Baxter and Hazel, hit it off immediately and soon they are having play dates. Both Carly and Max and zany relatives and find calmness with each other. But what would happen with their budding relationship if Carly gets her dream job in NYC and Max finally gets tenor? Autism, dog rescue and using dogs for therapy are also explored.
This was fun and quirky and sweet and absolutely bonkers in so many ways!! Loved Carly, although she’s clearly lost and trying to figure out what to do with herself. Max is nerdy and adorable and way to lenient with his dog. Overall, they are wonderful, although their families are way too much (other than Jamie, who is the best).
You can’t go wrong with a book written by Julia London. I loved these characters and the plot. the heroines mother is a nut case!! We all have one in the family. So looking forward to reading her next book.
Standalone Novel
Carly Kennedy and Max Sheffington have both been having one of “those” days when they arrive home, only to find that the wrong dog has been left for them! Carly tracks down the correct owner, but he has ruined Baxter with couch-sitting, mac-and-cheese, and Dog TV. Max is baffled by the beautiful woman in the strange costume, but he needs someone to dog-sit and Carly is his only option. Between Carly’s crazy clients and Max’s tenure track progress, neither has time to deal with a dog mix-up.
If you’re looking for a fun romp with dog swaps, family craziness and job struggles, this is the book for you!
What a wonderful story of Opposites attract due to a switch of dogs. Julia spins a witty story of how Hazel and Baxter (the dogs) accidentally get switched and end up bringing together Carly and Max (the opposite’s). You Lucky Dog will make you laugh and make your heart patter for Carly and Max to win at the love game.
Oh my goodness! Hazel and Baxter stole the show (or, actually, the book). YOU LUCKY DOG, Julia London’s latest, features two nearly identical basset hounds that accidentally get returned to the wrong owners bringing together their owners in an unexpected relationship. Like their dogs, Carly and Max are very different in their professional and personal lives, but both are on the verge of the next step in their career. Not planning on a relationship, they spend more and more time together because Hazel is definitely good for Baxter. Carly is determined, a bit rigid, and more than a little over the top, while Max is nerdy, dependable, and laid back. Both have families they are very involved in, especially Max with his father and autistic brother, Jamie.
This was a fun story with quirky characters that were fun to watch. I loved that Carly’s life was not perfect, like many people’s, but that she has goals and wasn’t afraid to put herself out there and do whatever it took to achieve her goals. I also love that Max and Carly respected each other’s decisions and career paths, supporting each other, but not influencing the big decisions.
London is good at writing stories and characters that will have you giggling, and this one was no different. YOU LICKY DOG is a fun summer escape from everyday life, especially in August 2020.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for an advanced copy of this novel. All opinions are my own.
#YOULUCKYDOG #JULIALONDON #BERKLEYROMANCE
Thank you NetGalley for my advanced copy of “You Lucky Dog”.
After a pup switch, Carly and Max strike up a friendship were they rely on each other when their dog walker was arrested.
Max and Carly are both struggling, Carly looking for a new career, Max is working for tenure. Add in crazy family dynamics and life is less than great! Between the ups and downs, they both learn about chasing their dreams, falling in love and growing up in the process.
I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUCH A CUTE PREMISE. Meet cute – Basset Hound switcharoo style and I am hooked – Hazel and Baxter were just so adorable. Can we also just appreciate the beautiful cover of this book which I was immediately drawn to.
I enjoyed reading about the characters Carly Kennedy and Max Sheffington – they were such a delight to read about and they were such cute sometimes over the top and slightly over dramatic – totally get it! That actually made it so much more fun to read for me – so cute and so delightful.
I found the writing to be so charming and adorable. Also, including an autistic character in the book also brought the heart melting moments for me about Max – I thought the writing captured this in such a beautiful and sensitive way that I really admired in this novel.
I found this to be a perfect summer escape read many would enjoy, for being funny, and also for being such a light hearted read that involved really adorable hounds and so much more.
If you are a dog lover, you cannot miss this!
I loved the quirkiness of this story! It starts with two bassett hounds that get mixed up, and everything spirals out from there. There were surprises all through the plot, and I found myself gasping with shock several times.
Carly is trying to believe herself into the life she wants because her hard work doesn’t seem to be getting her there. She is trying to put the best face on things, but that is cracking one facade at a time. I found her struggles to be very relatable. She seems a bit shallow in the beginning because she is trying so hard to keep the plates spinning. Her true self comes through as she gets to know Max, and I really loved her as I read on.
Max is trying to follow his career path, but he is beginning to feel that something is missing. When it crashes into his life, he will hardly know what to do with it or about it. Even though emotions are a little difficult for him, I loved that he was honest with himself about his feelings as he moved through this story, especially as pertained to his father and Jamie.
Carly and Max have the best conversations. They are so funny and offbeat, and I think I highlighted almost everything they said to one another. I could feel their connection as they learned to communicate with each other. I was definitely rooting for them the whole way.
Under the craziness and comedy, there are some serious themes. What do you do if hard work is not enough to get what you want? What is the balance between logic and emotion, and how do you know when to favor which? London also realistically portrays the challenges of caregivers and their family members. I enjoyed evvery page and am looking forward to a reread soon.
This book starts with an accidental dog swap. Carly Kennedy comes home from work and finds out that dog walker accidentally switched out the basset, Baxter, she was watching for her sister with another basset named Hazel. Added into everything else going out of control in her life, this is the last straw. Max Sheffington finds a depressed basset in the place of his cheerful Hazel and is confused as to what is going on. But when Carly shows up on his doorstep, he wants to know more about her. Neither was expecting the other, but they may have found exactly what they each needed.
Ok so the blurb for this one had me intrigued when I read it. However, I had a really hard time getting into it. Carly and Max just didn’t seem to have a connection, or at least I couldn’t see it. The plot seemed to go along slowly, which I found a bit strange. And I’m not really sure why we needed to know so much about what was happening with her parents, it almost made me feel like their relationship involved their daughter more than it should have. The interactions with the dogs were cute and funny though. I just had a really hard time with this one. And that isn’t to say that someone else wouldn’t love it, it just wasn’t to my tastes.
You know when people are so different but there’s just something there that makes them compliment each other? That’s Carly and Max. The perfect match that doesn’t match. They meet when they have a dog mix up and the attraction between them sizzles. Throw in some dog mayhem, work chaos and family drama and I’m reading this story through the night. I literally laughed one minute and cried the next. Loved this book!