Customer Reviews

The Accidental Mother

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sophie Mills has the "perfect" life---she's a successful event planner on the fast track for promotion, she's got a great flat, and her shoe collection is to die for. Everything is going along just fine until she receives word of the death of her best friend, Carrie, along with custody of Carrie's two young daughters, Bella and Izzy. Unprepared as she is, Sophie gamely agrees to watch the girls until their father can be located to return for them. What happens next is not only a comedy of errors, but a tender change of heart for all concerned as Sophie realizes that maybe her life isn't quite what she'd hoped for after all.

This little gem of a book is British chick-lit at its best; funny, irreverent, life-affirming, romantic. Sophie's upheaval is told believably and I particularly was glad that there was none of the "love at first sight" plotline. I loved how Sophie came to care for the girls and their father, and how she stopped putting herself first (though I found it reassuring that the author chose to periodically remind us that Sophie did, indeed, think of her own needs first, at least for a time). I would like to have seen how things worked out with the family, and whether or not Sophie was able to settle into the life she'd chosen. Overall, this is a good read and easy to get into. Nice brain candy and a heart-warming tale, complete with adorable children and a love interest; really, who could ask for more?

Delightful story! I have to say that the beginning reminded me a lot of the movie Raising Helen - single woman, who is very career driven, suddenly finds herself in charge of children, when she seemingly has no experience with anyone below the age of 25. Through the final wishes of someone close, they become the guardian.
This is where the similarity ends however. In The Accidental Mother, Sophie finds herself suddenly in charge of her childhood best friend's two daughters, Bella age six and Izzy age three. Sophie had once promised her friend, Carrie, that if anything would happen to her, she would take care of her children. When the unthinkable happens and Carrie is killed in a car accident, Sophie finds that she is the legal guardian of her godchildren. However, this does not fit into Sophie's vision for her future - she is working hard as a corporate manager on the track to a promotion. What is she going to do with two young traumatized little girls? Deciding to take matters into her own hands, Sophie begins the search to find the girls' long lost father who, after leaving behind his wife and children, is nowhere to be found. After Sophie hires a Private Detective, Louis, the girls' father, is soon located. By this time, Sophie has become closer to the girls and has second thoughts about their father coming into the picture. This is where the story takes a twist and gets very interesting...
While reading, I was reminded a bit of Sophie Kinsella's work. Very enjoyable and very fun. I love to get into the British voice through a delightful story such as this.
The Accidental Mother touches the reader with both humor and heartwarming sincerity. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a relaxing and enjoyable read!
This is a story that proves that life does not always go as planned - but the detour takes you to a much better place, in the end.

I loved the book, but rated it 4 stars because there were an awful lot of typos and misprints. Using spell check is not enough! I know it sounds picky, but when one or two turned into 5 or 6 and so on it gets annoying.

I'm not a fan of Oprah-esque finding your true self kind of books so this one took me off guard when I actually enjoyed it. Sophie is a 20 something year old woman with the job and apartment of her dream, when she finds that her once best friend Carrie has died and her pact to care for Carrie's two young daughters is now a reality. This just isn't part of Sophie's well ordered life so the first thing to do is find the father of these two lovable terrors. In walks the quite handsome Louis who Carrie once described as "making her pants fizzy" and the unequipped sudden mother now must put this family back together, but which pieces go where and which pieces need to be chucked. This funny heartbreaking book makes you laugh and cry and in the end you are cheering on an ending that in a way I didn't see coming. I would have chucked the wrong pieces. I highly recommend this book to those that love a fairy tale.

Favorite Quote: It's not wrong for your dreams to change, it's just wrong if you don't pursue them with every ounce of energy and determination that's got you this far.

Judging by its premise I expected to love this book. The storyline is excellent. Compelling in that it elicits strong emotions from the reader and addictive in that you are eager to find out the fate of the characters. However, as the page number increased so too did my impatience. Sophie was a whiny bore with low self esteem. Her work and personal lives were an oxymoron. She was amazingly accomplished at one and could plunder on through unimaginable setbacks. However, where her personal life was concerned, her immature and selfish ways of dealing with things left me frustrated to be spending precious time reading such nonsense. I enjoyed the middle part of the novel immensely but honestly, by the end, I was disappointed and regretful that I spent my time on it.

This was a very easy read, but it also kept me interested throughout the whole book. It was not as predictable as I first thought. I enjoyed it and will pass it along to friends.

Though I found the beginning of this book a little clunky, the author soon hits her stride, and despite the unlikely premise, the book does work. After Sophie's friend Carrie dies in a car crash, Sophie learns she is now the guardian of Carrie's two young daughters. Surprised to learn that Carrie's husband has been gone for years, Sophie agrees to temporary custody, naively believing the children will have little impact on her swinging single lifestyle. Bella and Izzy and their issues are well drawn, and offer some of the most poignant portions of the novel. Watching Sophie's development into a true adult as she works through issues of love and loss make for a very enjoyable read. I also like the way Louis' character is gradually revealed through the novel. Life for these characters is like real life- messy and complicated but ultimately satisfying.

That is the question Sophie Mills has to face when, on a regular work day she finds out that her best friend since childhood, Carrie, has died and she is left to take care of her two girls Bella & Izzy indefinitely. In an instant Sophie has to take leave of her job and figure out how to make a home, however temporary for these girls. Workaholic Sophie is certainly not up for the task. She and her best friend Carrie had not spoken for ages before her death and Sophie, loath to admit it as she may be, feels no connection to her godchildren. In fact the only connections Sophie does have is with her gay assistant Cal and her not-so-friendly cat Airtimis.

Now with very little help from a kindly but overworked social worker Tess, Sophie has to figure out how to keep up with her job, help these girls who have been ripped from the only life and parent they know, all the while trying to find the father that abandoned them years ago.

Despite the many typos, as other reviewers have pointed out `THE ACCIDENTAL MOTHER' is a heartwarming story that may be a bit predictable at times but will still satisfy the reader to the end.

I just finished reading The Accidental Mother by Rowan Coleman. I found it cute yet predictable. My main objection to the book is the number of typos and grammatical mistakes I found. I can't stand typos!!!! This is a professionally published book, not self-published. Who's in charge of checking for inappropriately placed words, words left out, grammar errors? It's very frustrating to me to be reading, getting into the setting, the characters, the story, and then have an article left out or word spelled wrong. It completely breaks my concentration. Does anyone else feel this way? Did anybody else find the mistakes I'm talking about?
Thanks for letting me vent.

Loved this book. It was funny and sad at the same time. I didn't want to put it down. It is such an easy read. I very much recommend this book. I think any woman will have a little in common with Sophie at some point in the story. The little girls are so adorable and so real. I love d the ending too, it gave me enough to be happy and satisfied. I think any other ending would have made me not want to read this book again. With this ending I felt my self imagining all their lives as a big happy family, and at the same time it allows me to know that it may not work out for them at all too. The book is great. Thank you Mrs. Coleman for this book because it took off of the "reading bad books lately wagon".