*I was given an ARC of The Christmas Dog Sitters in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Bloodhound Books and Lucy Mitchell for my copy of the book*

Synopsis:

Rachel is struggling. She’s navigating the loss of her best friend, she’s left heartbroken by her ex-boyfriend, and she’s recently been made redundant by her employer. So the impending holiday season is the last thing she wants to think about.

Then her rich sister suggests that Rachel dog-sit her spaniel, Humphrey, in her luxurious country house in a quaint village in Surrey. However, Rachel is soon manipulated into caring for her elderly Grandpa Eric, too. Between managing flight-risk Humphrey and rebellious Grandpa Eric, Rachel uncovers family truths, discovers a secretive west wing . . . and must cook Christmas dinner for an entire village.

Amid the chaos, Rachel meets handsome builder Ben. Working at the house, he’s also no stranger to loss, but is willing to re-enter the dating scene—albeit with a six-year-old daughter in tow. Can Rachel and Ben find their way through grief at this tricky time of year? And when a snowstorm threatens to ruin Christmas for everyone, can Rachel and Humphrey bring the community together?

Review:

I’ve put off writing this review for weeks because I really don’t know what I thought of The Christmas Dog Sitters. I finished the book, which is a good sign, but I didn’t love it.

It took such a long time for this story to really get going. The first chapter is really fun and I loved the dynamic between the characters, but then one of them dies and it’s all a bit depressing. A lot of this book focuses on death and grief and I really wasn’t expecting that. Especially as this is marketed as a romance and there isn’t a lot of romance.

Speaking of romance. The relationship between Rachel and Ben was not done well. You could see the author was trying to make it an ‘enemies to lovers’ as Ben would often say mean things about Rachel to begin with but there wasn’t any development with this. They went from being a little harsh to each other to suddenly having a romantic relationship that I honestly can’t remember anything about.

Rachel’s constant jumping to conclusions was quite annoying. Why did she trust the opinions of strangers when it came to Ben rather than just asking him? She already knew these women didn’t like her because of her sister, so why would you trust anything they say? It just caused unnecessary drama in a book that already dealt with multiple serious topics.

Christmas is barely even an afterthought in this book. The only festive thing that happens is Christmas day itself and even then it doesn’t feel different to any other day that happens during the book. The Christmas Dog Sitters could have been set at any time of the year and it wouldn’t have been a different story.

It’s a shame that the flawed parts of books are the most memorable as there were definitely parts of this book I enjoyed but they are being overshadowed by the parts I didn’t. I did really like some of the characters and the story was very sweet but there were too many storylines happening at once so none of them really shone through.

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Like this post? Why not read this one too: The 12 Books of Christmas: Christmas Ever After by Jaimie Admans