A Girl’s Best Friend
By Elizabeth Young 

    When this sassy, witty (and a tad mushy) British contemporary look at life, love and dogs mentions “the Bridget Jones video,” as in that Bridget Jones, it’s a cheerful acknowledgment that this book falls into the same category. Readers who devoured Bridget’s diary should be rabid to read Elizabeth Young’s latest. The book will also appeal to fans of the films Down With Love and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

     So how does boy lose girl in this book? If you’re unlucky-in-love, lucky-in-dogs Isabel Palmer’s too-devoted-divorced-father boyfriend Leo, the kids (and their mom) interrupt the course of true love. If you’re her mate and old crush Rob, you get made over by the Pygmalion Paula. And if you’re Nick Trent, the “nockshus” veterinarian, an unlikely love interest who predictably gets Isabel’s back up. As happens in all romantic comedies, hero and heroine trade witticisms like a Spencer-Hepburn film with English accents. He insults her friends, her weight, and most damagingly, her dog, Henry, a lovable mutt that looks like a sheep. (Isabel defends her dog by saying he’s a rare Arabian species, a Baluchi camel hound. Nick retorts, “it looks to me as if one of his ancestors had sufficiently defective vision to mount a sheep by mistake.”)

     Despite all that, Nick just might be the one who can make Isabel forget the list she’s taped to the fridge: “Dogs Are Better Than Men Because…” He might also be the one who can make her forget the adorable-with-his-kids, not-so-adorable-with-relationships Leo. Ironically, Isabel’s Nick is also a divorced dad.

     The key theme of the book, snuck in amid a murder mystery weekend, job troubles, the tried-and-true love plot and the whirl of Isabel’s friends’ relationships is that love is never perfect, and it’s difficult to judge who is right for someone else. The book delivers this message with sparkling dialogue, original and fully-rounded characters, and Isabel the heroine who captures your heart. Move over, Bridget Jones.