What do you think?
Rate this book
Men of Courage #4
The Truth About Cats & Dogs
Tailspin by Lori Foster
Sadie Harte's Chihuahua is head over heels for the Chihuahua next door. It's impossible for Sadie and neighbor Buck Bosworth to keep them apart. And soon Sadie and Buck are finding it impossible to stay away from each other, too. Clever Chihuahua!
Second Hand Sam by Kristine Rolofson
Three homeless dogs, an old van, a six-hundred-mile rescue mission. What could possibly go wrong? As Jessica Hall finds out...everything. Now Jessica needs rescuing, too. And her canine friends know just the man to be her hero.
Familiar Pursuit by Caroline Burnes
When Mack Sanders's little girl, Miranda, goes missing, Penny Jameson's friend Familiar, the feline sleuth, senses there's more to Miranda's disappearance than her search for a lost cat. And Familiar also senses there's more to Mack and Penny's attraction than they realize...yet.
Sadie Harte's Chihuahua is head over heels for the Chihuahua next door. It's impossible for Sadie and neighbor Buck Bosworth to keep them apart. And soon Sadie and Buck are finding it impossible to stay away from each other, too. Clever Chihuahua!
Second Hand Sam by Kristine Rolofson
Three homeless dogs, an old van, a six-hundred-mile rescue mission. What could possibly go wrong? As Jessica Hall finds out...everything. Now Jessica needs rescuing, too. And her canine friends know just the man to be her hero.
Familiar Pursuit by Caroline Burnes
When Mack Sanders's little girl, Miranda, goes missing, Penny Jameson's friend Familiar, the feline sleuth, senses there's more to Miranda's disappearance than her search for a lost cat. And Familiar also senses there's more to Mack and Penny's attraction than they realize...yet.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 2004
5 people are currently reading
389 people want to read
About the author
Lori Foster
425 books11.7k followersSince first publishing in January 1996, Lori Foster has become a USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly and New York Times bestselling author. Lori has published through a variety of houses, including Kensington, St. Martin’s, Harlequin, Silhouette, Samhain, and Berkley/Jove. She is currently published with HQN.
Lori hosts a very special annual “Reader & Author” event in West Chester, Ohio. Proceeds from the event have benefited many worthy causes, including the Hamilton County YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter, the Animal Adoption Foundation, The Conductive Learning Center for children with spina bifida and cerebral palsy, and The One Way Farm, Children’s Home.
Each year Lori donates all proceeds from one book to charity. You can see the benefit romance books here: http://lorifoster.com/benefit-books/
Career Highlights
•In 2001, Lori received the prestigious Romantic Times “Career Achievement Award” for Series Romantic Fantasy.
•In 2002, Lori’s book Too Much Temptation was the top-selling romance title for Amazon books.
•In 2003, Say No To Joe was the second “Bestselling Original Contemporary” romance title for Waldenbooks.
•In 2004, Lori Foster was a clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle.
•In 2004, The Secret Life of Bryan was the “Bestselling Original Contemporary” romance title for the BGI group.
•In 2005, Lori received the prestigious Romantic Times “Career Achievement Award” for Contemporary Romance.
•In 2006, Jude’s Law was the “Bestselling Romantic Comedy” romance title for the BGI group.
•In 2007, Lori launched a new “urban fantasy” series under the name L.L. Foster. See more on her “dark side” at www.llfoster.com.
•In 2007, Causing Havoc was among Amazon’s Top Ten Editor’s picks in Romance.
•In 2008, Hard to Handle made #2 on The New York Times.
•In 2009, Servant: The Acceptance was Amazon’s #1 Editors’ Pick in Romance.
•In 2010, Lori was a clue in the USA Today Quick Cross puzzle.
Lori hosts a very special annual “Reader & Author” event in West Chester, Ohio. Proceeds from the event have benefited many worthy causes, including the Hamilton County YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter, the Animal Adoption Foundation, The Conductive Learning Center for children with spina bifida and cerebral palsy, and The One Way Farm, Children’s Home.
Each year Lori donates all proceeds from one book to charity. You can see the benefit romance books here: http://lorifoster.com/benefit-books/
Career Highlights
•In 2001, Lori received the prestigious Romantic Times “Career Achievement Award” for Series Romantic Fantasy.
•In 2002, Lori’s book Too Much Temptation was the top-selling romance title for Amazon books.
•In 2003, Say No To Joe was the second “Bestselling Original Contemporary” romance title for Waldenbooks.
•In 2004, Lori Foster was a clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle.
•In 2004, The Secret Life of Bryan was the “Bestselling Original Contemporary” romance title for the BGI group.
•In 2005, Lori received the prestigious Romantic Times “Career Achievement Award” for Contemporary Romance.
•In 2006, Jude’s Law was the “Bestselling Romantic Comedy” romance title for the BGI group.
•In 2007, Lori launched a new “urban fantasy” series under the name L.L. Foster. See more on her “dark side” at www.llfoster.com.
•In 2007, Causing Havoc was among Amazon’s Top Ten Editor’s picks in Romance.
•In 2008, Hard to Handle made #2 on The New York Times.
•In 2009, Servant: The Acceptance was Amazon’s #1 Editors’ Pick in Romance.
•In 2010, Lori was a clue in the USA Today Quick Cross puzzle.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 11, 2009
I´ve only read 'Tailspin', Lori Foster´s story. It was quick and entertaining, and that´s about it.
June 2, 2010
I just read Lori Foster's Tailspin. You know, I love Lori Foster. I like-a the romance, as my bookshelves will tell anyone who look, but I also love the characters in Foster's books. I don't "like" all of them as people, but I really feel like, in many cases, they are like real people. Even the shallow folk are complex characters.
What a perfect afternoon I just had. I just came back from seeing my thesis adviser and had a massive headache. So I sat down with this Foster story, a big glass of iced tea and the more than recommended Advil dose. Now I feel all warm and fuzzy. Turned my mediocre day into something much more enjoyable.
What a perfect afternoon I just had. I just came back from seeing my thesis adviser and had a massive headache. So I sat down with this Foster story, a big glass of iced tea and the more than recommended Advil dose. Now I feel all warm and fuzzy. Turned my mediocre day into something much more enjoyable.
July 8, 2018
2.5 Not much luck with this one. The second book is okay, but the other two were not my cup of tea.
Tailspin - Lori Foster - 2 /5 - Buck is the last man standing among his friends and still enjoying his single life. He’s dog-sitting his friend Riley’s Chihuahua and while letting the dog out, he spots his unsocial, spinterish neighbor lady out in the yard in her nightgown...and he starts pondering her “social” life and gets himself the idea that since he has two-weeks of vacation he might soften her up a bit. As he does so, he realizes that neighbor-lady, Sadie, is actually a sweet, innocent woman and that he’s ready to settle down with her.
As I get older and read more, my tastes get more discriminating and certain behaviors irritate me. That was the case here...I don’t think it always bothered me, but the guy who sees his spinster neighbor and looks down on her thinking if she’d dress differently she’d have a better social life, bothers me. He feels sorry for her because she doesn’t go out with guys. And of course, even though he’s seen her and interacted with her a hundred times, it isn’t until he sees her nearly naked and realizes that she’s probably a virgin, that he starts to take a sexual interest in her. Not a moment before did he think she was worth his time, but the second he has thoughts about getting her into bed, she’s worth dedicating his entire vacation time to it. And he certainly doesn’t approach her thinking he’s in it for the long-term. So when we switch to Sadie’s POV and we’re seeing his actions through her eyes, his actions felt manipulative, because we can’t see that he’s falling in love with her until we get back to his POV. And even then he gets manipulative by thinking he’d bind Sadie to him with sex, since it would be her first time and she’s bound to get more emotional because of that. Nothing about Buck made me want to like him. And I found it really hard to believe that Sadie would just jump into bed with him the way she did, especially since she knew how often he entertained women. But she didn’t have one single insecurity about being, what she probably thought, was a one-time fling for him.
Now Buck ended up being a pretty decent guy in the end, but if this book hadn’t been so short, I probably would have DNF’d this one because of his attitude in the beginning. Even the dogs, as adorable as they were, wouldn’t have prevented that.
Secondhand Sam - Kristine Rolofson - 3 /5 - (Clean) Sam Grogan is left jilted at the altar and when he takes his dog to Krispy Kreme for some recovery donuts, Darcy the dog causes a car crash. The lovely lady who avoided hitting the dog, Jess now has no car, which she desperately needs in order to transport her three Pekingese rescues to Rhode Island. Sam offers to drive them north, which Jess reluctantly accepts. Both feel the attraction, and give into it a bit, but neither of them are sure if this thing between them has a future, especially since they live in different cities, come from different backgrounds and Sam was recently left at the altar.
This was cute, but not super memorable...except for maybe in that it reminds of an Affair to Remember with that whole, let’s meet in Boston at 6pm and let’s not talk or communicate beforehand. It seemed silly since he did have access to her cell phone (from his Mom’s application) and could have simply texted her or called her to let her know he was running late but definitely still coming. Nevertheless, I liked their interactions and I absolutely adored Darcy. This did kinda jump the shark though when Darcy actually had a POV...didn’t seem to accomplish much and probably would have been better without it. I like it when my dog characters are simply dogs and don’t have a human voice. But Darcy (outside of his POV scenes) was absolutely adorable and the characterization of the big dog, was pretty spot on.
Familiar Pursuit - Caroline Burnes - 2 /5 - (Clean) This is a novella in a larger series about a hyper-intelligent cat detective named Familiar and his owner, Peter, and they’re visiting his niece, Penny who just opened a vet clinic. A little girl Miranda brings over some newborn kittens and begs Penny to save them, then disappears. Her father, Mack, who initially comes across as abrupt and not nice, ends up recruiting Penny, Peter and Familiar to help find his kidnapped daughter. In the process, they stumble across a pet-napping ring and Penny and Mack discover some romance.
I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more if I’d been familiar (pun intended) with the series and understood everything about the cat and what he could do. As it was, it felt unnatural that these humans were so quick to accept that this cat was able to reason, plan and lead an investigation. And there was some sort of mystic communication between Miranda and Familiar and that seemed strange too. Maybe having knowledge from earlier books in the series would have helped with all of that. Besides that, this book was okay, but not particularly emotional or even exciting and angsty. The chemistry between Mack and Penny was pretty much non-existent, neither of them was able to convey emotion very strongly, despite having some very emotional episodes in their past and when Miranda went missing, I wasn’t able to FEEL Mack’s panic and worry. I could see it on the page, but nothing was coming across. I think there was a lot of telling instead of showing in some places that needed more description.
Tailspin - Lori Foster - 2 /5 - Buck is the last man standing among his friends and still enjoying his single life. He’s dog-sitting his friend Riley’s Chihuahua and while letting the dog out, he spots his unsocial, spinterish neighbor lady out in the yard in her nightgown...and he starts pondering her “social” life and gets himself the idea that since he has two-weeks of vacation he might soften her up a bit. As he does so, he realizes that neighbor-lady, Sadie, is actually a sweet, innocent woman and that he’s ready to settle down with her.
As I get older and read more, my tastes get more discriminating and certain behaviors irritate me. That was the case here...I don’t think it always bothered me, but the guy who sees his spinster neighbor and looks down on her thinking if she’d dress differently she’d have a better social life, bothers me. He feels sorry for her because she doesn’t go out with guys. And of course, even though he’s seen her and interacted with her a hundred times, it isn’t until he sees her nearly naked and realizes that she’s probably a virgin, that he starts to take a sexual interest in her. Not a moment before did he think she was worth his time, but the second he has thoughts about getting her into bed, she’s worth dedicating his entire vacation time to it. And he certainly doesn’t approach her thinking he’s in it for the long-term. So when we switch to Sadie’s POV and we’re seeing his actions through her eyes, his actions felt manipulative, because we can’t see that he’s falling in love with her until we get back to his POV. And even then he gets manipulative by thinking he’d bind Sadie to him with sex, since it would be her first time and she’s bound to get more emotional because of that. Nothing about Buck made me want to like him. And I found it really hard to believe that Sadie would just jump into bed with him the way she did, especially since she knew how often he entertained women. But she didn’t have one single insecurity about being, what she probably thought, was a one-time fling for him.
Now Buck ended up being a pretty decent guy in the end, but if this book hadn’t been so short, I probably would have DNF’d this one because of his attitude in the beginning. Even the dogs, as adorable as they were, wouldn’t have prevented that.
Secondhand Sam - Kristine Rolofson - 3 /5 - (Clean) Sam Grogan is left jilted at the altar and when he takes his dog to Krispy Kreme for some recovery donuts, Darcy the dog causes a car crash. The lovely lady who avoided hitting the dog, Jess now has no car, which she desperately needs in order to transport her three Pekingese rescues to Rhode Island. Sam offers to drive them north, which Jess reluctantly accepts. Both feel the attraction, and give into it a bit, but neither of them are sure if this thing between them has a future, especially since they live in different cities, come from different backgrounds and Sam was recently left at the altar.
This was cute, but not super memorable...except for maybe in that it reminds of an Affair to Remember with that whole, let’s meet in Boston at 6pm and let’s not talk or communicate beforehand. It seemed silly since he did have access to her cell phone (from his Mom’s application) and could have simply texted her or called her to let her know he was running late but definitely still coming. Nevertheless, I liked their interactions and I absolutely adored Darcy. This did kinda jump the shark though when Darcy actually had a POV...didn’t seem to accomplish much and probably would have been better without it. I like it when my dog characters are simply dogs and don’t have a human voice. But Darcy (outside of his POV scenes) was absolutely adorable and the characterization of the big dog, was pretty spot on.
Familiar Pursuit - Caroline Burnes - 2 /5 - (Clean) This is a novella in a larger series about a hyper-intelligent cat detective named Familiar and his owner, Peter, and they’re visiting his niece, Penny who just opened a vet clinic. A little girl Miranda brings over some newborn kittens and begs Penny to save them, then disappears. Her father, Mack, who initially comes across as abrupt and not nice, ends up recruiting Penny, Peter and Familiar to help find his kidnapped daughter. In the process, they stumble across a pet-napping ring and Penny and Mack discover some romance.
I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more if I’d been familiar (pun intended) with the series and understood everything about the cat and what he could do. As it was, it felt unnatural that these humans were so quick to accept that this cat was able to reason, plan and lead an investigation. And there was some sort of mystic communication between Miranda and Familiar and that seemed strange too. Maybe having knowledge from earlier books in the series would have helped with all of that. Besides that, this book was okay, but not particularly emotional or even exciting and angsty. The chemistry between Mack and Penny was pretty much non-existent, neither of them was able to convey emotion very strongly, despite having some very emotional episodes in their past and when Miranda went missing, I wasn’t able to FEEL Mack’s panic and worry. I could see it on the page, but nothing was coming across. I think there was a lot of telling instead of showing in some places that needed more description.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2018
Delightful stories/novellas. I especially liked Familiar the black cat detective.
January 5, 2012
Lori Foster's Tailspin was a cute read. I enjoyed it, especially the two Chihuahuas. Very likeable characters. It is the best story of the anthology.
Kristine Rolofson's Secondhand Sam was an okay read. I think it would have made a better single title book with fully fleshed out characters but it was...okay.
Caroline Burnes' Familiar Pursuit was awful and ridiculous. It brought the whole anthology down and is the reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 3.
All in all the anthology was okay. Not any better or any worse than any other romance anthology.
Kristine Rolofson's Secondhand Sam was an okay read. I think it would have made a better single title book with fully fleshed out characters but it was...okay.
Caroline Burnes' Familiar Pursuit was awful and ridiculous. It brought the whole anthology down and is the reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 3.
All in all the anthology was okay. Not any better or any worse than any other romance anthology.
April 5, 2013
Tailspin by Lori Foster: 2 1/2 Stars. Ridiculous like all the others in this series but still a fun novella if a little sappy and preachy.
Secondhand Sam by Kristine Rolofson: 3 Stars. I was actually surprised at how much I liked this one.
Familiar Pursuit: Didn't read. Opening pages didn't interest me to go any farther.
Secondhand Sam by Kristine Rolofson: 3 Stars. I was actually surprised at how much I liked this one.
Familiar Pursuit: Didn't read. Opening pages didn't interest me to go any farther.
August 6, 2013
Sorry - I gave this a good go, but just couldn't get into it. When the first female lead was described as a tough, spinster like animal lover, then ran squealing round her garden because her dog had caught a bug, I decided that I really couldn't care less what happened to her!! Not really my cup of tea at all.
December 2, 2010
Liked stories by Foster and Rolofson.
January 26, 2015
Loved Buck and of course the cute little puppies!
October 2, 2014
The funniest story I have ever read from Lori!
December 5, 2013
The first story was the best. The last story was --I'll us the word tedious -- and the parts when the cat was talking were very uncat like in my mind.
But since they all had cats & dogs it was ok.
But since they all had cats & dogs it was ok.
September 10, 2016
really cute wrap up for a feel good romance series! love LF
February 6, 2015
The story by Lori Foster was awesome like her books all are. Secondhand Sam by Kristine Rolofson was okay. Didn't even finish Familiar Pursuit by Caroline Burnes. Not my cup of tea ig.
March 11, 2010
Eh. The Foster one was decent; the other’s not so much.
September 21, 2015
Read only Lori Foster's story.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews