Review: Cole and His Dog by Edward Kendrick

Title: Cole and His Dog

Author: Edward Kendrick

Publisher: JMS Books

Length: 194 Pages

Category: Paranormal

At a Glance: Overall, the story had promise but fell short for me.

Reviewed By: Taz

Blurb: Kicked out of his home at eighteen, Cole ends up at The Haven, a drop-in spot for homeless teens, run by Adam Franks. Unable to spend the nights there, he ends up sleeping rough, is attacked by a pair of punks — and rescued by a Bullmastiff he names Bull.

Cole and Bull become inseparable. Cole also meets, and is attracted to, Ky, a friend of Adam’s, who twice saves Cole from more attackers. After the second attack, things suddenly change in Cole’s life when he finds out why someone seems to be after him.

Will Ky be able to convince Cole he’s told him is the truth, while dealing with his own attraction to Cole? And can Ky and his friends keep Cole safe from a man who claims to be Cole’s real father?

Review: Cole and His Dog by Edward Kendrick is a shifter story about Cole, an eighteen-year-old kicked out of his home for being gay; Bull, a shifter Bullmastiff; and Ky, a hunky piece of man. The story opened in a heart-wrenching sort of way, Cole faced with his parents’ hatred, and finding himself alone and homeless. Luckily, he gets the assistance from a walk-in center for homeless kids, and begins to make a new life for himself. Very quickly, however, he realizes that living on the streets is dangerous, but once he meets Bull, a huge dog who immediately befriends and protects him, things begin to pick up.

The story took a huge right turn once we realize that Bull isn’t all that he seems to be, and we become immersed into the lives of shifters, battles between packs, and the threat of a sinister alpha who believes Cole is his son, removed from him at birth. While I’ve read books by this author before, and have enjoyed them, this particular book fell short for me. Characters accept the things that happen to them very quickly; for example, Cole learning of his own origin. Such a realization would normally send someone into a tailspin, their lives completely upended, but Cole accepts this with little resistance…something unusual for an eighteen-year-old.

There is also a great deal of telling instead of showing. For example, the author would say something like, ‘The characters were hungry, so they ate.’ The attraction between the two main characters simmers but never really explodes. The one time they do finally express their feelings physically, the whole scene is skipped, and we jump ahead to the next morning. Finally, there were a lot of editing mistakes (extra words which should have been caught with a careful editing job).

While I get that the author loved these characters and cared about them, the overall writing style and plot development was too simplistic for my taste, and emotions were not fleshed out the way I enjoy in stories.

Overall, the story had promise but fell short for me.

You can buy Cole and His Dog here:
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