The Unknown Daughter: A Little Secret (Harlequin Superromance No. 1247) [Mass Market Paperback]

Anna DeStefano (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harlequin Super Romance | Publication Date: October 1, 2004

Carrinne Wilmington turned her back on her past and her first love when she was only seventeen. Now, for the sake of her sixteen-year-old daughter, she's returning to her South Georgia home to search for the key to their future. When someone tries to stop her from finding the truth, will Eric Rivers, the rebel-turned-sheriff from her past, help her protect the daughter he's never known?

Don't miss this Waldenbooks Series Romance Bestseller!!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... a five tissue box tale..."
--Harriet Klausner -- The Best Reviews.com

"... a promising start for a new author." -- All About Romance.com

"Anna DeStefano pulls out all the stops... This is what romance should be."

--Top Pick Gold Medal Review -- Romantic Times BOOKclub, October, 2004

About the Author

Anna Destefano's passion is writing emotional stories about hope and healing.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harlequin (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0373712340
• ISBN-13: 978-0373712342
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,710,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anna DeStefano (http://www.annawrites.com) is a nationally best selling author of classic romance and psychic thrillers. She's a two-time RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award winner, and has won or finalled in countless other awards including the National Readers Choice Awards, the Holt Medallian, the Book Buyers Best Award, the Golden Heart and the Maggie Award for Excellence.

She speaks and blogs regulary about both her writing experience and the fascination with metaphysics and paraspychology that led her to create her Legacy Series' contemporary psychic world. Join Anna at her blog each week (http://www.annawrites.com/blog) for Dream Theory and Psychic Realm updates, as well as her running series on How We Write Wednesdays (HoWW) and the writing industry favorite Publishing Isn't for Sissies (PIFS).

Her interactive workshops on the writing process--plotting through character, improvisation (drafting), and rewriting--regularly attract standing room-only crowds wherever she speaks. Her series of communication workshops (taught independently or with her literary agent, Michelle Grajkowski, 3 Seas Literary Agency) are the latest addition to her teaching resume, and they're quickly becoming the most requested of her programs and conferences and weekend-long retreats.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving tale of loss...and rediscovery!, October 25, 2004

By 

Holly Fuhrmann (PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unknown Daughter: A Little Secret (Harlequin Superromance No. 1247) (Mass Market Paperback)

Carrinne Wilmington left home seventeen years ago. She left behind her family, the boy she loved. She left with a secret. Now she's back, determined to find an answer to the old question...who was her father? As she searches she discovers more than just that truth...she rediscovers a love that never really died. And is forced to admit some truths of her own.

Anna DeStefano's first book is an amazing story of long buried hurts and of newfound understanding, of forgiveness and second-chances.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh treatment by debut author, April 14, 2005

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Unknown Daughter: A Little Secret (Harlequin Superromance No. 1247) (Mass Market Paperback)

Carrinne Wilmington needs a liver donor to save her life. But her only known blood relative is her sixteen-year-old daughter, Maggie, and she refuses to allow Maggie to risk her life. There is one other possibility--Carrinne's father, whose identity she never knew. So Carrinne returns to her hometown of Oakwood, Georgia, to retrieve her mother's diary, in which she is sure her father's name must appear.

Oakwood holds many unhappy memories for Carinne, and she hopes to not have to deal with them. But one of those memories--former bad boy, now Sheriff Eric Rivers--catches her trying to break into her grandfather's mansion. Eric doesn't know he has a daughter, because back when she was conceived, he broke up with Carinne declaring he wanted no responsibilities.

The secret-baby plot is a familiar one, but Ms. DeStefano gives it a fresh treatment. Rather than milk the central conflict until it's been sucked dry, she blends it with other conflicts--with Carinne's ambivalent feelings for her dying grandfather, her daughter's rebellion, and the complex emotions regarding Carinne's own mystery father. All of the different forces bombarding Carrinne make what could have been a predictable story leap off the page with freshness and originality. This is Ms. DeStefano's debut novel, and I look forward to more from this author.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars entertaining contemporary romance, October 12, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unknown Daughter: A Little Secret (Harlequin Superromance No. 1247) (Mass Market Paperback)

Though her memories are bad, Carrinne Wilmington must return to Oakwood, Georgia to learn the identity of her father because she needs him for the transplant. Her plan is to avoid her grandfather and the man she loves Eric Rivers who both rejected her and drove her from town. Besides not wanting to see the two gentlemen who rebuffed her, she wants to hide her teenage daughter Maggie from the duo especially Sheriff Rivers, the father.

Carrinne's effort to sneak in without detection fails from her first effort to get in and out as she is caught by a silent alarm and Eric. Worse someone wants the secret identity of her father left secret and is willing to kill the nosy Carrinne to accomplish this deed. Carrinne must give up on her quest, take her chance on surviving a killer, or rely on Eric to keep her safe although she does not trust the man she disappointingly still loves.

This entertaining contemporary romance is a five tissue box tale filled with angst and perhaps too much tear jerking yet fans will want even more. The cast keeps the tale from going over the edge into soap opera city as Eric sees a second chance, Carrinne and her grandfather has an opportunity, and then there is magnificent Maggie, perhaps older than her teen years suggest. Readers will appreciate Anna DeStefano's debut except perhaps tree lovers as an awful lot of tissues will be used.

Harriet Klausner