The Marine's Kiss (Silhouette Romance) [Mass Market Paperback]

Shirley Jump (Author)

Book Description

Series: Silhouette Romance | Publication Date: August 1, 2005

Report card for "student" Nathaniel Dole, U.S. Marine, by "teacher" Jenny Wright: The children have this tough soldier wrapped around their little fingers. It's obvious they hang on his every word. What more could a woman . . . er, a teacher, ask for? It's clear that he's nearly healed, but Nate continues to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. Perhaps he needs after-school tutoring and a little TLC?

Available only in Romance 12.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A feel-good romance with an imaginative and innovative story line, this book is definitely not one to miss." -- Romance Junkies

"Pick up a copy of The Marine’s Kiss and visit…Mercy, Indiana. You will have a good time." -- Writer's Unlimited

"Top Pick! With engaging leads and sparkling wit, The Marine’s Kiss is a winner." -- Romantic Times Book Club, August 2005

"What a great read...with a home-is-where-the-heart-is feel that has to touch a true romantic at heart..." -- Military Romance

From the Back Cover

The children have this tough soldier wrapped around their little fingers. It's obvious the children hang on his every word. What more could a woman...er, a teacher, ask for?

Nate's knack for downplaying his heroic past makes him even more fascinating for the children--and their teacher. It's clear that he's nearly healed, but Nate continues to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. Perhaps he needs after-school tutoring and a little TLC?

What's a woman got to do to get one little kiss? Maybe after the tutoring sessions...

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Silhouette (August 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0373197810
• ISBN-13: 978-0373197811
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 4.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,949,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nationally bestselling author Shirley Jump didn't have the willpower to diet nor the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk'writing.

She started out in journalism, selling her first article at the age of eleven and dreaming of being the next Jane Pauley. After writing 3000 articles and two non-fiction books, Shirley grew too dependent on her robe and fuzzy slippers, though, and decided a career as a freelance writer suited her better.

Then she got married. And had two kids.

Humor became the only thing that got her through the mashed potato flingfests and toilet paper decorating sprees. At first, seeking revenge on her children for their grocery store tantrums, she sold embarrassing essays about her children to anthologies such as Chicken Soup for the Working Woman's Soul and Chocolate for Women II. However, it wasn't enough to feed her growing addiction to writing funny.

So she turned to the world of romance novels, where messes are (usually) cleaned up before The End and no one is calling anyone a doodoo head. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays and the housework is magically done by elves.

She sold her first book to Silhouette Romance in 2001. That novel, THE VIRGIN'S PROPOSAL, won the Booksellers' Best Award for Best Traditional Romance of 2003. Two of her subsequent books were finalists in the Golden Quill Awards and two others were finalists in the Madcap Awards for best romantic comedy. She is also a Reviewers' Choice Award winner.

Shirley has sold twenty-six novels and now writes stories for Harlequin/Silhouette and Kensington Books about love, family and food'the three most important things in her life (though, there are many days when the order is reversed), using that English degree everyone said would be so useless.

She found a way to combine all her favorite things in her recipes with her own romantic comedy series from Zebra Books, which launched in September 2004 with THE BRIDE WORE CHOCOLATE. The fourth, THE BACHELOR PREFERRED PASTRY, is a February 2006 release, followed by PRETTY BAD in February 2007. Her next Romances will be a linked duet of BACK TO MR. & MRS. and MARRIED BY MORNING in May and June 2007. She also writes for Harlequin NeXt.

Though she's thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid cleaning the toilets and helps feed her shoe habit.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Originally Posted on Romance Junkies in 2005, May 13, 2007

By 

Jennifer Wardrip (Bloomington, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Marine's Kiss (Silhouette Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)

When you start a book with a twenty-nine-year-old woman kissing a three-hundred-pound pig named Reginald, you know the story is going to be a good one. With THE MARINE'S KISS, pigs, goats, multicolored hair, llamas, and exploding volcanoes are only the tip of the iceberg.

Jenny Wright is a third grade teacher with a mission. Teaching at a school in danger of losing its funding due to low achievement scores by its students, Jenny is determined to do anything and everything to get the students in her class interested in learning. Kissing a pig seemed a small price to pay to have her students reading one hundred books before the end of the spring term. As for the multicolored hair and a giant sundae the likes of which no one has ever seen, it was nothing but more incentive. Although the school's principal, Dr. Davis, doesn't approve of Jenny's teaching methods, she can't help but see that her unorthodox approach to learning is having results-beyond those of laughing nine-year-olds who have no appetite for their dinner or bacon for breakfast.

Since she can't complain about Jenny's results, Dr. Davis has come up with a new idea to get the kids to do their work-bring in a local hero, in the form of Nathaniel Dole, to assist Jenny in teaching the kids. All would be fine and dandy, if not for the fact that Jenny and Nate once had a relationship-a relationship that ended badly, when Nate left, once again, to return to the Marines that was his family, duty, and obsession.

For Nate Dole, being a Marine was his life. Now that he has a busted up knee, though, he's returned home to Mercy, Indiana, wallowing in self-pity and resisting his family's attempts to rejoin civilization. Until his mother, bless her, gets Dr. Davis to agree to Nate's help in the classroom. At first recalcitrant, Nate has know intention of joining the ranks of temporary teacher, even if it would put him in close proximity to Jenny Wright, who was the love of his life. But Nate's need to be a military man, travel the world, and leave at the drop of a hat killed their relationship over nine years ago.

THE MARINE'S KISS is, in a nutshell, romantic comedy at its best. Ms. Jump has taken two people who have never forgotten each other-or, in fact, stopped loving each other-and thrown them into a situation manipulated by well-meaning secondary characters. From the pig, to the fainting goat, to the exploding volcano on the day their class is visited by a member of the accrediting institution, the laughs come fast and furious as you're reading this book.

A feel-good romance with an imaginative and innovative story line, this book is definitely not one to miss.

5.0 out of 5 stars A romance worth more than the purchase price., December 5, 2008

By 

Harold Wolf "Doc" (Wells, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Marine's Kiss (Silhouette Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)

Shirley Jump has given readers a story in "The Marine's Kiss" that is not only timeless, but it is also believable. An earlier reviewer has fully presented the story line so let me just add that Shirley Jump obviously knows the setting, Mercy, Indiana. Well, perhaps Mercy is fictional but she knows Indiana.

Author Jump also knows kids and a good bit about the dealings of teachers and staff of a school. The story is "right on" as far as the third grade classroom activity is presented. This is a predictably ended story line but the activity of the teacher, Jenny, and her high school sweetheart, Nick the Marine, is heartwarming, often funny, and one that expresses emotion. This author DID NOT produce a cheap titillation-of-words. This is a romance book about love, not lust. That's a huge positive difference that Shirley Jump offers.

Check out other Shirley Jump books.