Melanie Travis has her hands full with her two young sons, a part-time job, and a half dozen Poodles to her name. But even with the busy holiday season approaching, she still has time to sniff out a Christmastime killer…
There’s nothing lovelier than Christmas in Connecticut, but Melanie can scarcely find a moment to enjoy the festivities. With her youngest son approaching toddlerhood, she’s decided to return to her old job at Howard Academy, a posh private school attended by the children of Greenwich’s well-heeled gentry. Balancing work, motherhood, and the hectic dog show circuit takes some fancy footwork, especially when the headmaster taps her to be the chairman of the school’s Christmas Bazaar.

The Christmas Bazaar is Howard Academy’s biggest and most important fundraiser, so Melanie feels the pressure to make it a huge success. She even enlists her longsuffering sister-in-law Bertie to help with the Santa Claus and Pets Photo Booth. But everything goes awry when a prize show dog goes missing and Santa turns up dead. The dog’s owner is one of the school’s most perfectly pedigreed alums, and she enlists Melanie to help find the purloined pooch. But just as Melanie starts pawing at the truth, she digs up a sleighful of sinister secrets that leaves everyone feeling less than merry… Melanie Travis 18 ( )

Fun quick read. Traded in

We really need a "meh" emoticon.
The Bark Before Christmas wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It didn't feel Christmassy, the plot was oddly non-existent for much of the book, and the ending was rushed. I never did figure out just what the hell was going on with those people; it was weird.

All of which makes the book sound like it cruised past 'meh' and straight into bad, but the characters - if you've read the previous 17 books and you're invested - were enough to keep it interesting. Melanie is back to work at the preparatory school she worked at in the beginning of the series and the environment was ripe with possibilities. But i just sort of felt like the author's heart wasn't quite into it.

I won't say no to the next one, but I'm not rushing out to buy it either. ( )

I love Laurien Berenson's books featuring Meanie Travis, her husband, two sons and six standard poodles as well as Aunt Peg. After the birth of her second son, Melanie took some time off, but she is asked to go back to teaching part time at the exclusive private school where she had previously been employed. Since she is only working part time when the chairman of their Christmas fundraiser decamps, the head of the school decides Melanie would be perfect. After a show dog is missing and their last-minute Santa replacement is found dead, her boss is sure that Melanie's the one to find the dog, the killer and spare the school embarrassment. A very entertaining read with great characters...human and canine. The book comes out in Oct. of 2015, but I scored an ARC from Kensington at ALA in San Francisco. ( )