Damaged hearts–man, woman, and dog–have a second chance for love, healing, and happiness under the warm Miami Beach sun.

Danielle Morrow works tirelessly for the greyhound rescue as an adoption coordinator, rehabilitating retired racing dogs and helping them find forever homes. She guards her heart as vigilantly as her two adopted greyhounds guard her home. One heartbreak per lifetime is enough for any woman and no one she’s met since her high school boyfriend dumped her to join the military has ever tempted her enough to risk love again.

Knox Donovan expected to be career military, but an injury has resulted in an honorable discharge that leaves him uncertain of his future. When his brothers ask him to come back to Miami Beach to help manage their new condo conversion, he figures he can at least advise them about security systems before declining the job. He has no intention of staying in the city that has so many bad memories for him.

Knox is reminded that not all his memories of growing up in Miami Beach are bad when he sees Danielle again at the Grand Opening of the new Fur Haven Dog Park. Fifteen years haven’t softened the pain of their breakup. But Knox is different now, more hard-edged and suspicious, and when he bonds with the retired racing greyhound, Sarge, Danielle’s cool reserve begins to melt. Sarge needs special care after the injuries that ended his racing career, and it’s not long before Danielle realizes that Knox does too. Can Danielle trust her heart to the one man who’s ever broken it?

Titles in the Fur Haven Dog Park series include – Cold Nose, Warm Heart – Tail for Two – Paws for Love –

Title:  Paws for Love
Series:  Fur Haven Dog Park #3
Author:  Mara Wells
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  February 23, 2021
Publisher:  Sourcebooks Casablanca
My Rating:  4 stars

Paws for Love is a charming, emotional romance full of second guesses, second chances, and fur babies looking for their special human and their fur-ever home.  Really.  What’s not to love about any of that?  I’ve enjoyed this series, and while I’ll always recommend reading from the start, with this series you can pick up any book and enjoy it without missing anything.  Of course, you’d know the backstories of people you might meet along the way, yet it can stand on its own when necessary.  Knox and Danielle’s story is the third title in the Fur Haven Dog Park series.

There was a time when high school sweethearts, Danielle and Knox might have been planning for a family, a happy-ever-after future.  But that dream came crashing down and Knox left Danielle for a military career.  Now, years later, Danielle still isn’t willing to trust her heart to any human, the dogs she takes care of nurtures and finds forever homes for having become her life’s work and these four-legged loves have her heart wrapped around their paws.  Now her safe life is about to explode when Knox steps back into it.  They’ve both changed over fifteen years, but it seems the heart remembers both the love and the pain.  Can they find a second chance, much like Sarge, a retired greyhound needs to find a place where they belong… together?

Paws for Love tore my heart apart.  Thankfully, by the story’s ending, it was healed back whole, but the journey to get to that happily ever after is full of potholes, speed bumps, and a lot of letting go of the past and looking towards the future.  It’s not easy to get beyond what you perceive as a betrayal of your love, no matter the circumstances.  When Danielle needed Knox the most he made a decision that affected both of their lives for years.  Watching this couple work to get beyond the past, make slow, steady steps toward accepting that their love never truly died, and watching an adorable, injured greyhound find his family, his forever home was an emotional journey full of laughter, anger, tears, and that warm feeling of knowing they finally got it right.

I enjoyed stepping back into this world again with Knox and Danielle… and Sarge.  If you enjoy a love story of wounded lives finding the love they all truly deserve once again, then Paws for Love (or the entire Fur Haven Dog Park series) is the perfect love story for you.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca via NetGalley. That does not change what I think of this story. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

Available in paperback, audio, or for your favorite e-reader – mine is the Kindle.