Elsa Watson

Review: The Love Dog by Elsa Watson

February 14, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 10 Comments

By Elsa Watson

Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: January 29, 2013
Genre: Adult Contemporary/Fantasy Romance
Source: Publisher

Fired from her job as a paralegal, Samantha Novak is in trouble. When Telltale, a Hollywood tabloid, asks her to write an expose on the reality television dating show, The Love Dog, Samantha is thrilled. She’s always dreamed of being a writer, and the fat paycheck won’t hurt. After being recently left at the altar, she’s not too keen on love either.

Hired as the canine star’s handler, Samantha finds that digging up dirt on set is harder then she thought. Apollo, the show’s star, is a sweet golden retriever who takes his job as the “love dog” very seriously. He only wants to help couples fall in love and make everyone on set happy. Mason Hall, the show’s producer and leading man, is down to earth, charming, and… very attractive.

If Samantha doesn’t reveal to the world that the reality show isn’t exactly “real,” her new career will be over before it starts. But when she falls in love with Apollo and Mason, will she still have the heart to expose The Love Dog’s dirty secrets?

Goodreads Summary

Confession time: I’m not a dog person. It’s not even that I’m just a cat person, but I’m pretty much really, really not a dog person. They make me nervous, their barks are like nails on chalkboard to me and no matter how many times you bathe them, they smell. So book dogs are great, with all the fun, none of the pooper scoopers. I hadn’t read any dog-centric books until last year’s Dog Days by Elsa Watson and I loved the whimsy of being inside of one’s head. When Tor sent me Watson’s newest release, I was happy to read it and thought with that title, I had to do it on Valentine’s Day. I can review romance anytime, but how often can I do it from a dog’s perspective?

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Filed Under: *A Rating, 2013 Standalone Challenge, Barbara Recommends, Contemporary/Romance, Fantasy, Humor Tagged With: Elsa Watson

Guest Post: Give Me a Funny Book Any Day by Elsa Watson

May 17, 2012 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 2 Comments

Today we’re welcoming Elsa Watson to Basia’s Bookshelf. Elsa’s the author of Dog Days, a funny, sweet book about woman that ends up in the body of a dog (and the dog in hers) in a canine-crazed town during Woofinstock – you can check out my review below.

So, welcome, Elsa!

Thank you so much for having me on Basia’s Bookshelf! I wanted to talk about something weird that happened to me a couple of years ago—a major shift in my reading life.

I used to love dark, heavy, brooding books. I gravitated toward historicals that were full of beheadings and poisonings. I could work my way through the slowest 500-page classic, could keep a dry eye as authors killed off beloved characters or put their heroines through gruesome tortures, accidents, betrayals, and disappointments.

But suddenly, that all changed. I remember when it happened—I was standing at a huge table of books in an elementary school gymnasium, holding a paper bag. This was at the gigantic rummage sale that’s put on annually by our local Rotary Club, a sale that offers something no reader should ever miss—the chance to fill an entire paper bag with books and buy it for a dollar. And there were SO MANY BOOKS. The table I stood at was twenty feet long, and beyond it stretched another and another and another.

Given this wonderful sea of books, I should have had three bags already filled. But I didn’t. I kept picking books up and putting them down. Picking them up. Putting them down. Finally, I took a step back.

“I just want to read something fun,” I thought. “Something funny.”

Ah, something funny! That was a new idea. I like trying new things, so no sooner had I expressed this thought than the decision was made. I was going for funny. Within five minutes I had a full bag.

I went home that night with books by Nick Hornby, Jennifer Weiner, Janet Evanovich, Suzanne Selfors, and Jennifer Crusie. I tore through every one and started hunting down more. These books were light, they were fun, and they made me laugh. They were exactly what I was looking for.

That was a long time ago, and I’ve been seeking out funny books ever since. With my reading tending in a humorous direction, it wasn’t long before my writing followed suit. A couple years ago—when I couldn’t help but notice that my historical fiction ideas weren’t gaining much traction—I tried switching gears in a big way. I sat down to write a goofy dog story. In it, the heroine and the lead dog character switch bodies when they’re struck by a bolt of magical lightning, so the woman ends up trapped in a dog’s body while the dog gets to run around with thumbs and the ability to speak.

It’s silly. It’s nutty. And I loved working on it.

When what you read and what you write mirror each other, it’s like balance has been returned to the Force, like vampires and werewolves have decided to end the war and just be friends. There is peace. And there are many chuckles.

~ Elsa

About Elsa: Pacific Northwest native Elsa Watson has always loved animals. After raising chickens and inoculating goats in the Peace Corps in West Africa, she and her husband moved to an island near Seattle where they’ve filled their lives with dogs, more chickens, and the cat they brought home from their travels. She currently works at the West Sound Wildlife Shelter, a wildlife hospital and education center. Elsa is the author of MAID MARIAN (Crown, 2004; Three Rivers Press, 2005), a re-telling of the Robin Hood legend.

Her novel DOG DAYS will be published by Tor-Forge in May 2012, followed by THE LOVE DOG in the spring of 2013. To learn more, visit www.elsawatson.net.

You can also find Elsa on Facebook and Twitter

Author bio courtesy of Goodreads

Filed Under: Guest Post Tagged With: Elsa Watson

Dog Days

May 17, 2012 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 6 Comments

By Elsa Watson

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Publication Date: May 22, 2012
Genre: Contemporary Romance/Humor
Source: Publisher/Tour

In Elsa Watson’s Dog Days, struggling café owner Jessica Sheldon volunteered to be the chairperson of Woofinstock, Madrona’s annual dog festival, to overcome her reputation as “number one dog hater” in her dog crazy Northwestern town. Determined to prove her dog-loving credentials, Jessica rescues Zoe, a stray white German shepherd— and in the process the two are struck by lightning.

Jessica wakes to discover paws where her feet should be, and watches in horror as her body staggers around the town square…. Zoe and Jessica have switched bodies. Learning to live as a dog is difficult enough, but Jessica’s real worry is saving her café from financial ruin. To complicate matters, she’s falling hard for Max, the town veterinarian.

It’s clear that Zoe is thrilled to live life on “human terms,” thoroughly relishing all of the fun and food Woofinstock has to offer. But Zoe is also anxious to use her new human skills to find her missing family—who may not want her back. And Jessica needs to confront a complicated figure from her past before she can move on with her life.

Jessica and Zoe will need to learn from each other to set things right, and possibly find acceptance and love in the bargain.

Goodreads Summary

Jessica Sheldon had a doggy-fueled meltdown during last year’s Woofinstock, turning her into a pariah for the past year. Dog haters just aren’t embraced in Madrona, a town known for their kooky, slightly obsessive love for their canine friends. Jessica has one chance to save her reputation and her precious Glimmerglass café by proving that she really does love dogs, participating in the festival and giving a big speech.

An evening storm sweeps through the town square, catching Jessica alone with Animal Control and a very wet white dog about to be tasered. Before the dog can bark, “don’t tase me, bro,” Jessica jumps in and inadvertently claims Zoe as her own. Max the vet sends the dog home with Jessica until her owner can be found and on the way, lightning literally strikes. When Jessica wakes up, she’s got white paws, a persistent itch between her shoulders and a need to pee on something. Zoe can barely stand up and staggers around like the town drunk, hitting her head on anything that gets in the way.

Nearly everything from this point on is just fun. Jessica manages to steer Zoe to her apartment – she still doesn’t really get that she’s taken over a human body yet. When she wakes up, she’s just delighted. The human world seemed so exotic and powerful to a simple dog, she wants to try everything except this stupid human body doesn’t work right. She can’t smell where the food is or figure out how to get at it. Zoe is happy exploring the world as a human but Jessica can only think about what’s going to happen with Woofinstock, the café and her big crush on Max now that she’s a dog. He may be a vet but their relationship won’t quite advance the way she’d hoped anymore.

Jessica desperately needs to get Zoe focused on things other than drinking out of the toilet and eating other people’s table scraps at the café. She figures out that between the “new” Jessica’s wacky behavior and her “new” smart and cute dog, it’s great advertising for Glimmerglass and the two go wild at Woofinstock. Zoe is hoping to catch the scent of her real owners and find her way back home and Jessica just wants to get through the festival and get her body back.

Of course it’s not that easy for either of them and true love between Jessica and Max isn’t going to follow any straight line. There are lots of moral stories to be learned, some of which are a little heavy-handed and seem out of place in such a light story. The romance between Jessica and Max is sweet rather than passionate (she is a dog in most of the story, after all), but it’s nice. I liked the way Max found things out about her through other people while she was listening as a dog and realizing how her actions had been misinterpreted. I can’t give away things too close to the ending, but their kissing (they finally were going to mate according to Zoe) was very cute.

In every great story, a few not-so-positive things have to happen. This wasn’t that major in the grand scheme of things, but the secondary characters felt flat to me. There were the enemies (Gus and Leisl) and the friends (Max and Naomi) and while they all contributed something that made the story fun, I didn’t think there was much effort to make their characters very deep. Jessica’s partner and friend Kerrie was given more background with her and much more page time but I still didn’t feel a connection there. It’s weird when the heroine of a book has better chemistry with a dog that’s taken over her body than with a friend who’s supposedly known her for years.

My Summary: If you love light contemporary romance with humor and if you love dogs, you’ll really enjoy this. Dog Days is quirky and sweet enough that it can get away with being compared to other body-switching stories and still stand out. The book is a great length at 344 pages, just enough that I spent some enjoyable time with it, getting ready to dive back into my regularly scheduled reading.

My Rating: B+