Official Review: Lie Down With Dogs by Gail McFarland

Lovely_Ink · Post by **Lovely_Ink** » 11 Jun 2014, 18:16

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Lie Down With Dogs" by Gail McFarland.]

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Loi Cramer is a woman with a past. After forty years of good fortune living among Atlanta’s elite, the skeletons have come out of the closet to play. When a familiar blast from the past shows up on Loi’s doorstep she knows without a doubt that trouble is not far behind. Torn between keeping the past a secret and guilt over ignoring the life that she left behind in Chicago, Loi entertains her unexpected houseguest and in the process welcomes all types of danger into her carefully constructed world.

Lois is a middle aged woman who has managed to make much of her meager beginnings. She married into wealth and following her husband’s death has new opportunities before her. She is involved in the community and has the attention of a dear man-friend. When trouble comes, Loi must put the potential of her future aside to deal with the danger that she is facing.

On face value I like the idea of this book. We seldom read romances with more mature casts and it is interesting to see that relationship problems are the same regardless of the age of the participants. What is a bit hard to swallow is the way that Loi goes about interacting with the person that has barged into her home. True, she is in her sixties and has not thought about her low-income, rough life in Chicago for many years but it’s hard to believe that not a piece of that old self is still in her. She is a pushover and allows herself to be lied to, stolen from and taken advantage of all while biting her tongue. It is not until the abuse becomes physical that she makes a weak attempt to stand up for herself.

Throughout the book Loi finds it difficult to rely on those close to her to help with this situation. I get it; she is trying to protect her past, but it seems that she is doing so at the risk of her own well-being. The supporting characters in the book all have their suspicions about what is going on and they are clearly on team-Loi but none of them really step up and dig deeper to see what is really going on. Instead they sit aside and allow her to work things out on her own. At the end, Loi is accidentally saved from her fate by the same thing that gets her out of trouble at the beginning of the book… and about that; the plot that builds us up to the main story seemed unnecessary. It’s resurgence at the end of the book was a bit weird and none of it added to the real story at hand.

All in all this was a good read. It is categorized as a romance but it is more suspenseful than romantic. Loi Cramer is meant to come off as a sassy older woman to be reckoned with and in a way she is. I do believe that she could have been tougher and a bit more outspoken to live up to the role but the Loi that we meet is still quite sassy. At the end of the day I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.

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