A review by angiew23
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by Lizzie Shane

4.0

This is your pretty standard Christmas romance, there is a girl and a guy, they have some kind of small town issue, end up falling in love and then there is some kind of happy ending, usually involving some kind of miracle or problem resolution which for one reason or another did not work at the beginning of the story but now makes perfect sense. In this case, Ally has come to her grandparents' home town to help with photography and keeping up with the day to day business of their animal shelter. Ben is the guardian and uncle of 10 year old Astrid who loves dogs and Christmas spirit. He is also in charge of making budget-related decisions at the town hall. When forced to choose between a community centre roof repair and continued funding for the animal shelter the following year, he goes against what Astrid and Ally would clearly choose and ends funding for the shelter, but promises to help the 12 dogs currently awaiting adoption find their forever homes. When Ally finally gives in to the reality of the impending closure, she considers returning back to the city to piece together the life she left behind, but she is torn by her feelings towards Ben.

I'll be honest, I skimmed the majority of the book. It was exactly what it was supposed to be, but unfortunately when it comes to mass market romance books, that usually means predictable and lacking substance. The animal shelter aspect definitely appealed to me because of my past experience working in one, but the descriptions and events were fairly surface level so even that didn't keep my interest. For a Christmas romance, it checks all the boxes, it is a light read, it has some nice themes and decent character development, but nothing that will make you burn the turkey because you just can't put down your book. Thanks to Forever Publishing for the fun Christmas reads!