SAVING BUDDY: THE HEARTWARMING STORY OF A VERY SPECIAL RESCUE by Nicola Owst

SAVING BUDDY: THE HEARTWARMING STORY OF A VERY SPECIAL RESCUE by Nicola Owst

✯✯✯✯                                                                                                     Review by Astrid Galactic

If you've looked around lately, you'll have noticed that this world has gone to the dogs. There are dogs everywhere! On the beach, up and down the sidewalks, alongside you at dog-friendly restaurants, memes, dog prints, YouTube, commercials... you name it. You'll also find plenty of books on dogs. Why? Because we love them so much. One of those newer books is Saving Buddy: The heartwarming story of a very special rescue by Nicola Owst. 

One rainy English day, Nicola was out on a mission to pick up a horse rescue from a farm where quality of life was not one of the owner's goals. Seeing the disgustingly deplorable conditions of a couple of the animals, they ended up going home with two horses and one caged, feces covered, very abused Staffordshire Bull Terrier on the verge of taking his last breath. This tore Nicola's heart apart. She didn't ask, she just took the poor little boy who turned around and stole her heart. 

As with any animal rescue book, it's loaded with parts that will make you cry. You'll get most of your crying over with in the front of the book as Nicola talks about how she found Buddy, or Buddy Boy, and how badly he was abused. But as the book continues, you'll also find yourself weeping tears of joy as the story tells of healing and triumphs along the way. Not just for Buddy but also Nicola as she too was inadvertently rescued by Buddy after her own personal turmoils. 

Nicola's early life is a true Cinderella story complete with finding her prince with the prince being Buddy Boy. Actually, she found two as she eventually meets Jon, her husband, who is one of the good ones. Although, there was no glass slipper which was probably a good thing because Buddy probably would have just chewed it up. When Nicola was still just a young girl, her mother passed away leaving her under the care of her father who had become a broken man who quickly married the woman who would play the role of Nicola's literal wicked step-mother. Those tales of neglect and abuse too will wet your eyes. 

Fortunately for Nicola, she had a good network of others in her life who would eventually step in and help her along the way. Once she was just old enough to move along, she moved out and started to establish herself as an independent young woman. She still worked at the stable but also found other work to pay the bills. This was also when Buddy found a permanent place in Nicola's life. This is a tale of the true love of two partners saving the lives of each other through thick and thin. 

Buddy is still with Nicola and her family but slowing down as we all do with age. You'll read of their interactions at dog shows, various medical scares with both Buddy and Nicola, vacations with friends of both the two and four legged variety, and trips scaling mountains, as well as how Buddy was involved with Nicola making peace with her broken father. There's also plenty of information regarding animal rescue missions and some basic information on how you too can get involved. 

As sad as some of this book is, it was still a delight to read with many of its endearing stories and Buddy anecdotes. By the end, I found that I was ready to leave the book, though I found it to be the perfect length. All had been told and it almost started to get a little too much with the many dog shows and details involving rescue organizations. All good but any more would have ventured into the preachy zone. 

The world may have gone to the dogs but those best friends of ours are often who save us. No, they can't save the whole world but every saving connection is one dog step closer to saving each other. The story of Buddy Boy and Nicola is just one of those tales. 


Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of the eBook in exchange for a fair and honest review. 

(ARC eBook)

Non-Fiction

Memoirs

Hardcover, 304 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1912624669

Publisher: Mirror Books

Expected Release Date: September 12th, 2019 (eBook);

                                            December 12th, 2019 (Hardcover)

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GRETCHEN: A THRILLER by Shannon Kirk

GRETCHEN: A THRILLER by Shannon Kirk

✯✯✯✯                                                                                                Review by Astrid Galactic

Living a life on the run often makes for an interesting premise for a novel. Gretchen: A Thriller by Shannon Kirk is such a novel that is packed with back history as to why one is on the run as well as where the run leads a character. This run takes 15 year old Lucy (as she's most often called in this story) around the country by her mother in an attempt to elude Lucy's father whom is claimed to want to take her off to a foreign country where women have no rights, where Lucy would be in great danger. 

Lucy has been on this run for her life for most of her life. Her mother never allows her to make friends, stand out, get too familiar with anyone or develop any sort of a normal lifestyle of her own because of her mother's intense paranoia which we don't learn the reasons for until well into the book. Once we do, the two are already deeply involved in yet another very weird circumstance that has other life threatening implications. By this time, Lucy has had it with not being able to settle down and make a friend that she refers to as a Jenny. In their latest rental, Lucy rebels and insists they stay in what originally seems to be an idyllic location in New Hampshire. A place to settle and put down some roots. 

One of the appealing reasons that Lucy finds in this place is that the landlord has a daughter, Gretchen, about the same age as Lucy. Both girls are desperate for friendship but it soon becomes evident that Gretchen is the much more needy one. Things get weird between the two rather early on and Lucy realizes that she must set boundaries as she continues to catch Gretchen sneaking up on her during Lucy's private moments. The girl, Gretchen Sabin, is just weird and doesn't seem to have any sort of understanding of how to be a friend, when to give space and how to properly react during various interactions. Gretchen is obsessed with puzzles and is very intelligent, yet there's clearly something else very disturbing about her. She has an extreme obsession about human bones, death and Dante's Inferno. Her puzzles, most of which she made herself, all contain these subjects and are framed throughout the equally strange house on the hill that she lives in with her concert pianist father. He's an oddball himself and very doting towards his daughter. 

When Lucy attends a dinner at Gretchen's house, the book takes a turn towards the creepy side. That was when Lucy gets to see how odd the house is as well as seeing this personal museum of Gretchen's bone puzzles. To be honest, this was when I totally expected to find out at some point later in the book that Gretchen and her father Jerry were cannibals and that all the bacon they fed her was made from long pig. Nope. It certainly would have fit though. 

As the story develops further, we get to meet all sorts of other characters, some whom are from Lucy's mother's past and eventually play a strong role within the rest of the story. Others are newer people who come into their present lives and play important parts but it's mostly those from the past who have the strongest impact. The most important character from the past is Laura who was a close friend to Lucy's mother for years at a camp the two attended as they were growing up. 

Things get somewhat convoluted as the story unfolds and, at first, seems to tell several different stories at a time. Of course, they all merge together once everything is revealed. My biggest problem with the book is that I felt that, after all was said and done, there were still too many loose strings. There was an awfully lot left out about the Sabin family and what made them tick in such a psychotic way. Oh, there's a history there and some of it is revealed but so much of the connection to the characters we got to meet was just so vague. In fact, some of it made no sense as to why they treated certain family members the way they did. A little reasoning would have gone a long way with the storytelling. It just seemed that so much was left out.

Outside of the story itself, I really loved the author's voice. The way she tells the story, especially while telling it through Lucy's eyes. There's a certain realness and down to earthiness that I could relate to.  I especially loved how she'd take a few extra words to get particular about some song, color, or item to set a scene that was otherwise unimportant to the story. These little descriptors helped to paint a picture of their environment and told us of pieces of her personality. The way Lucy spoke, or thought in her mind, made her come off as a likable person with a good sense of humor despite all the adversity foisted her way. 

Despite some of its holes, I found that I liked the book. It's definitely a real page-turner and kept my interest from beginning to end.

(ARC/eBook)

Fiction

Psychological Thriller

Paperback, 363 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1542041348

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Release Date: July 23, 2019

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