Let me get the obvious stuff out in the open right up front.  Yesterday afternoon, Brandilyn Collins posted an offer to her Twitter account and Facebook page that I could not refuse.  She offered to send anyone who was interested an electronic copy of her newest book, That Dog Won’t Hunt, if we’d go to her website, click on the Connect button and send her an email.  In exchange, she asked us to write a review or talk about it on our blogs.  I went to her website, clicked on Connect, and told her I’d be delighted to talk about the book, and .pdf format would be great.  Thank you.  Within minutes, the file was in my inbox.

I started the book yesterday afternoon, and picked it up again this morning and finished it.  Brandilyn is known for writing Seatbelt Suspense, but this book doesn’t have any dead bodies floating in hot tubs — or anything remotely like that to upset your sensibilities.  It has a young woman from a background with a terrible to nonexistent family life meeting her fiance’s large, boisterous family for the first time and not being able to imagine how she would ever fit in.  Ben Dearing’s family isn’t perfect, far from it, but it seems like that to Christine Day, and she feels pressure to appear to be perfect, too.  But the things that Ben finds so comforting, leave Christine doubting she can spend the rest of her life with Ben.  In fact, the first time Ben learns Christine’s father is dead is at the family dinner table.  What speaks of love to Ben only reminds Christine of abuse.  Are they just too different?  And what about Ben’s sister Jess?  She’s the only other sibling not married.  She’s focused on her career, but Tamel Curd (what were his parents thinking?) is still there to annoy her to no end.  Lady Penelope and precocious Lacey are there to smooth the way — or are they?

This not quite perfect but oh so caring Christian family looks like they might be around to keep us wondering for years to come.  That Dog Won’t Hunt is the first in the Dearing Family Series.  ($2.99 on Kindle, and $9.62 wherever paperbacks are sold.)  Brandilyn doesn’t disappoint (unless you wanted more dead bodies — move along. None of those here).