Dogs and Goddesses

By Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich

What happens when an ancient Mesopotamian goddess suddenly appears in a small college town in Ohio and expects people to fall down and worship her just like they did back at the dawn of civilization? She's probably going to be hugely disappointed...
Kammani Gula is the goddess concerned and she has been called back from oblivion by her millions of followers. But where are the millions of adoring followers? Why are they not dancing attendance on her at her temple which was dug up and moved from the Middle East to this small college in Ohio? She does have one minion, a college student named Mina who fancies herself Kammani's high priestess of death. Kammani knows her seven high priestesses are near. It is just a matter of drawing them to herself and reinvesting them as her priestesses. Mina is the one who comes up with the idea of a dog obedience class. Kammani and her followers are closely associated with dogs, and the women destined to be her priestesses are bound to have dogs also.
And it works, the chosen women do show up to the class, dogs in tow, where they are given a magical beverage that enables them to understand what dogs are saying. And that is just the beginning of the weirdness, as these women learn more about Kammani and about their own strange histories and it all adds up to a confrontation of Biblical proportions.

This book was just plain fun. I especially enjoyed the talking dogs. At one point an ancient Mesopotamian god resurrects in one of the women's bedroom and her dog goes after him and she stops him, but he begs, "Lemme me bite him, lemme bite him again." Yeah, if dogs could talk, that would definitely be one of the things they would say! I think I liked the talking dogs best of all. I also really liked the ending, with the women coming together to protect their town and coming into their own power and casting Kammani into the outer darkness, which turns out to be a place that sounds a lot like Los Angeles. Yep, this was a really fun read.