Customer Reviews

Millionaire in Command (Silhouette Desire, No. 1969)

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

 

 

Pretty typical Silhouette romance. The story actually has merit and reads easily. Kyle and the baby's mother had a fling over a year ago, and she got pregnant without telling him about the baby. Phoebe is a friend of her's and babysits often, then one day the mother (an actress) leaves and doesn't return. 3 months later with social services breathing down her neck Phoebe confronts Kyle, wanting to get married (paper only) so that she can keep the kid. The rest is predictable and of course the "tension" comes when the mother finally returns.

Kyle and Phoebe are likable characters and the Landis clan is quite interesting. My issue is how rushed the second 1/2 of the book feels. And I mean 300 mph rushed. Within the last 20-30 pages everything works out and one says I love you the other returns the verbal affection and its a happy ending. There was very little buildup of any kind, emotional or otherwise.

Catherine Mann continues her wonderful Landis Family series on Millionaire In Command.

Kyle Landis, Air Force Commander thought he could handle any mission that was handed his way. At his welcome home gale he is shocked to find out he may be a dad. Seems this beautiful woman in front of him is saying the daughter she has been caring for a friend is his child. Kyle is floored when Phoebe Slater suggests marriage between them to keep little Nina out of foster care.

History Professor Phoebe Slater doesn't mind taking care of baby Nina. But Nina's mom has been gone for months and Phoebe is worried child protective services will be knocking on her door any day now. She proposes a marriage of convenience to the baby's father to buy her some time to locate the mother.

Kyle and Phoebe both enter into this marriage with good intentions. Neither was planning on being so attracted to each other. Once they give into their desires all bets are off. Now that the relationship is real will it hold up when Nina's birth mother shows up?

Millionaire In Command is a real treat. You have you top notch military man and a strong capable woman, what more could you ask for in a romance. The dialogue is witty and the chemistry is spicy. Catherine Mann's stories are always a first pick for me.

The relationship between the leads in Catherine Mann's novel Millionaire in Command is logical and passionate, usually these two traits don't go together in a romantic duo but they aptly describe this couple. Phoebe Slater is a college history professor who has been taking care of her friend's baby. She loves little Nina but Nina's mother has been gone for over two months and Phoebe cannot find her. Phoebe is concerned that social services will take away Nina and put her in foster care so she finds Nina's father Kyle Landis and offers a solution; they can marry and she can keep Nina.

Kyle had no idea he had a child so he is quite literally stunned when Phoebe show up at his swanky party with a baby in tow. Kyle is as honorable as Phoebe so when he realizes Nina is his child he is more than willing to marry Phoebe for Nina's sake.

Right away I liked these characters. They don't go into theatrics over a bad situation and both are quick to see the importance of doing what is best for the baby. Phoebe is a widow who truly loved her husband but Kyle reminds her that life does move forward. Kyle is a lady's man but when it comes to settling down with Phoebe he is more than willing to change his ways. What begins as a modern day marriage of convenience quickly turns into a whole lot more with this duo.

The Girl: Phoebe Slater is a widow who has been pining for her dead husband for five years. She's got a lot of love and passion stored up. But just who will be the lucky person to get the payload?

The Guy: Kyle Landis, military hero of Afghanistan who is the uniform arm of a huge family/clan that has a ex-Secretary of State mom, a US Senator brother, a rebel without a cause brother, and a hotshot lawyer brother. They have a compound on Hilton Head. Hmm, I smell a whiff of Kennedy. (Don't worry, we meet them all and their wives and get their backstories.) Kyle's a rich boy with commitment issues, but he's got a heart of gold and overweening sense of honor and duty. Of course. Those medals on his chest sparkle with the divine gleam of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

The Setup: Kyle's one-week fling with Phoebe's old sorority sis Bianca comes back to bite him in the tuckus when Phoebe appears with a baby and birth certificate. Unable to locate Bianca aka Selfish Ditz Actress, Phoebe's afraid that Child Services is going to get called in, and she's just so in wuv with the tot, that she's cooked up the scheme of presenting Kyle with the sprog and having a fake year-long marriage so that she can still be with the kid and the brat will have at least one real parent around. *gasps for breath* You just know that body parts will be swelling within minutes and will be interlocking within days. And lo, they do.

Oh yeah, and Bianca shows up. You knew she would!

The Good Stuff: This was an inoffensive little "baby on doorstep" romance. Nothing too complicated about it, although Phoebe's logic sort of defied logic. I know that if I was shouldered with someone else's kid, my first thought would be to arrange a fake marriage with the baby-daddy. Luckily for Phoebe, when the Landis money and pull is engaged, Stuff. Gets. Done. With no questions.

Props to Mann for pulling a bait-and-switch with that description of the hot tub in the Landis compound gardens. I was sure that was a red flag for Location Of Future Rumpy-Pumpy, but it was never mentioned again. Ms. Mann = 1, Me = 0.

There was also a laugh-out-loud moment at the beginning with a Landis party in full swing where the South Carolina governor is dancing it up. Of course, all I could think of was Governor Hiking-the-Appalachian-Trail.

My Gripes: OK, series authors, stop it with the family cast of thousands. It's getting ridiculous. Not every book in a family series has to have every member of the clan in one scene. Matthew, Jonah, Sebastian, Kyle, Ginger, Marianna, Ashley...and then we get assaulted with backstories of them with even more names. After one chapter where the family history was dumped on me, I was all "Phoebe and Kyle who?" I thought they were the point of this story. By dumping all these "Read my past series books! Stay tuned for future ones!" plugs, Kyle and Phoebe's relationship seemed pretty thin when it could have been more fleshed out. Her blurting that she diddles herself and therefore isn't pent up was more prominent in the story than it should have been. It was only 178 pages. Jeez.