Gwen’s review of Dogs and Goddesses by Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich
Contemporary paranormal romance released by St. Martin’s 3 Feb 09

This is not, I repeat NOT, an anthology.  It’s a collaboration between three authors – a book with a single major story arc, containing sub-arcs about three heroines and their related adventure(s), reaching a single climax.  Publisher’s Weekly calls this book a “quirky charmer” – I call it a light romance with humor salted in and a lot of paranormal stereotypes.  The book has its own website here if you want to read more about the collaboration concept. 

Presumably Crusie, Stuart, and Rich each took on a heroine and focused on that piece of the overall story. Surprisingly, it reads as well integrated, even though it must have gone thru a huge number of hands before we get to see it. However, I did have to make a cheatsheet to keep track of which heroine went with which hero, dog, and profession – just too many details to keep straight.  Think about it: that’s 12 very important details to track over and over again (their stories are peppered throughout).  Ack!  I have a hard enough time remembering to give the kid lunch money, let alone which fictional dog goes with which fictional heroine at multiple points in a book. Then there was the heroines’ moms who play important roles, the new mythos, the villain, the villain’s minions, and all the secondary characters.  It was all a little mind-boggling.

It’s a cute story, if a bit longer than perhaps it should have been.  D&G is written with the light, humorous style that is prevalent in a lot of chick-lit these days. The heroes were all suitably masculine and hot, the heroines pretty and desirable.  There were a couple of departures from the norm (an older than normal heroine being one), but these authors stayed mostly on the well-trodden path of paranormal romance formulas.

Which leads me to the paranormal elements.  They were all a bit bromidic.  Very little new plot or world-building is done with the exception of some twists on established Egyptian mythos.  Bromide #1: the heroines are raised unaware of their abilities, and when they can suddenly speak to dogs, they’re shocked, but not that shocked.  I realize this is “normal” in a paranormal (heh – made a funny), but c’mon.  Then, bromide #2 – a heroine bakes cookies while lusting for her hero and, when eating them, or even smelling them, makes people go on a sex bender – I think I saw a movie or two with that time-honored cliché.  There are others, but those are the two that I recall right now.

It was all entertaining, but not terribly compelling.  A bit like watching a Lifetime movie that makes you chuckle a couple of times, but you still channel surf during the commercials, get distracted by the nuts at Mythbusters, and then suddenly remember that you were watching something interesting but can’t remember the channel…  (I’d rather watch reruns of the new Battlestar Gallactica, thanks.)

The upshot is I can recommend this book to fans of lighter paranormals or of the authors.  If you like a bit more meat on the bones of your stories, this may not be the book for you.

Grade: C+

Summary:

Abby has just arrived in Summerville, Ohio, with her placid Newfoundland, Bowser. She’s reluctantly inherited her grandmother’s coffee shop, but it’s not long before she’s brewing up trouble in the form of magical baked goods and steaming up her life with an exasperating college professor.

And then there’s Daisy, a web code writer, and her hyperactive Jack Russell, Bailey. Her tightly-wound world spins out of control when she discovers the chaos within and meets a mysterious dog trainer whose teaching style is definitely hands-on.

Finally there’s Shar, professor of ancient history at Summerville College, who wakes up one morning to find her neurotic dachshund, Wolfie, snarling at an implacable god sitting at her kitchen table, the first thing in her life she hasn’t been able to footnote.

What on earth is going on in this unearthly little town? It’s up to Abby, Daisy, and Shar to find out before an ancient goddess takes over Southern Ohio, and they all end up in the apocalyptic doghouse…

Read an excerpt.