Mother's Day Books

This story does not have any of the charachter or imagination of the original series which my son adores. The sappy story is convoluted and hard for a young child to follow. There is no narrative 'pay-off' and the illustrastions wholly lack the depth of the Sendack versions of the characters. My son read it twice a year ago and has never picked it up again.

From the back cover:

THE BIRTH MOTHER
Bachelor uncle Bryan Chambers has become a bachelor father--to his eleven-year-old niece, Nicki. But he's obviously not doing a good enough job of surrogate fathering, since Nicki is interested in only one thing--finding her birth mother. Bryan succeeds in tracking down her mother, Jennifer Teal, and discovers two drawbacks. She doesn't seem to like kids. And he seems to be falling in love with her.

ANOTHER MAN'S CHILD
Marcus Cartwright loves his wife. Lisa Cartwright adores her husband. But their marriage is falling apart, because Marcus can't give Lisa the baby they've always longed for. He wants to give her her freedom. She doesn't want it. So she decides to take matters into her own hands...

SHOTGUN BABY
FBI agent Con Randolph finds to his horror that the state has arranged for the adoption of the six-month-old son he had no idea he had. But when he tries to claim his son, the state feels he doesn't have much to offer a child. Con doesn't know a single woman who would marry him--but he does have a best friend. And Robyn Blair could benefit from a temporary marriage of convenience.

Three stories written for the heart of every mother...by bestselling author Tara Taylor Quinn.

And my review:

All of these stories were previously published seperately in the mid 90s. This is a collection of reprints.

This author obviously has a big following, but I'm afraid that I'm not one of them. I've yet to read a story by her that has really captured my interest or touched my emotions. In fact, I've yet to even finish one of her books.

THE BIRTH MOTHER was a story that suffered from something I've complained about with this author's other books. We have to wait forever until the hero and heroine meet, and when we do, there's zero chemistry between them. It felt like the romance was tacked on, and it stayed in the background of the story. The other themes, of adoption, and finding your birth parents were explored in much more depth than the romance was. The relationship just never really seemed to "get going". Two stars.

ANOTHER MAN'S CHILD really turned me off. I find the whole idea of sperm donation creepy. I could not like the heroine for basically forcing her husband to accept another man's child as his own. How can any man be expected to happily watch his wife go through pregnancy with another man's child? It just isn't natural, and I personally think that it's wrong. Hello? Ever heard of adoption? Mentoring? Foster care? Buying another man's sperm and having yourself impregnanted (especially against your husband's wishes) is just wrong. One star.

SHOTGUN BABY suffered from unlikeable characters. Personally, I didn't think either the hero or heroine was capable of being a good parent, alone or together. They smoked, drank, swore, were married to their jobs, and seemed rather self-centered. Biology shouldn't trump all, which is the message this author portrayed. Just because a child is biologically yours doesn't mean you will be a good parent to him or her. I felt that the state would have been perfectly justified in taking any child of these two away from them. How could I cheer for them to win custody of the child when I felt that neither of them deserved it? Two stars.

I've only one more book by this author on my to-be-read bookshelf. After that, I will be very careful not to pick up anything else written by her. I've always found her work to be dissapointing, and I'm afraid that this collection was no exception.

The Queen Mother is indeed a "splendid old bird," worthy of the love and affection of her people but this book is too cloying in the beginning to be a good biography. The book does get better after the first 100 pages but there is no depth to this biography; no examination of the flawed side of this remarkable woman. She does have her flaws and these should be in a well-balanced biography. She is, after all, a human being and not a goddess.