Secret Baby, Surprise Parents (Harlequin Romance) [Kindle Edition]

Liz Fielding (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Grace McAllister thought being a surrogate for her sister would be a truly selfless act. But secretly Grace longed for the baby inside her to be her own, conceived in passion with the only man she had ever loved. But that could never be.

Josh Kingsley couldn't bear to watch the baby grow big in Grace's belly, unable to share in the magic. He wished she and the child were his to take care of. But when tragedy struck, Josh rushed to be there for Grace and baby Posie. Could they be his life, his family?

About the Author

Liz Fielding was born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain.

Seven of her titles have been nominated for RWA’s Rita®; The Best Man & the Bridesmaid won the Best Traditional Romance in 2000, and The Marriage Miracle won the Best Short Contemporary Romance in 2006. She’s also won the British Romance Prize in 2005.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 232 KB
• Publisher: Harlequin Romance (March 1, 2009)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0023EFAJM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,331 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Reading is, and always has been, the first love of my life. Except writing.
Success came early -- I was twelve when I won an Easter egg in a hymn writing competition at school - but life intervened with my plans to become a hot shot author. The day job. Not that this was dull. I travelled to Zambia at the age of twenty where I worked as a secretary, before following my personal hero to the Middle East, Kenya, Botswana and ambition became buried in the joyful business of raising a family.

I never forgot that I was a "writer", however. I wrote children's stories for Listen With Mother. Magazines articles. Ghost stories. I was at a point where I wanted to move onto something bigger when I read a magazine piece about Charlotte Lamb and Anne Hampson and discovered, rather late in life, romantic fiction. I read everything I could lay my hands on, then, feeling certain I had a grasp of the genre, began writing. I had three rejections - I still have those letters! -- but my fourth submission became An Image of You and was published in 1992.

Since then seven of my books have been shortlisted for RWA's RITA award - two of them, THE BEST MAN & THE BRIDESMAID and THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE winning in 2001 and 2006, respectively. A FAMILY OF HIS OWN always won the RNA's Romance Prize in 2005.

My best-beloved and I are empty-nesters these days, living out in the country where excitement means a visit from the mobile shop, the travelling library, the fish man. But I'm a writer, I invent my own worlds. Once the door to the my cabin in the woods is closed I can be anywhere my imagination takes me; the desert kingdom of Ramal Hamrah, the villages of Upper Haughton, Little Hinton and Longbourne where romance is always just around the corner, or I can jet off to New York, the Mediterranean, even the Himalayas. Come and see where I'm headed next - http://www.lizfielding.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dynamic intensely emotional romance, April 6, 2009

By 

D. Merrimon Crawford (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secret Baby, Surprise Parents (Harlequin Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)

Grace McAllister cares deeply for others, so much so that she would do anything to ease her sister's Phoebe's pain, even become a surrogate mother. Grace's bold decision puts her at odds with the one man she has ever loved, Josh Kingsley. Successful and popular with the ladies, Josh seems headed on the fast track, a track that leads him farther and farther from home. When tragedy strikes, can Grace rely on Josh to help her? Together can the two of them do what is best for the little baby Posie? In the midst of their grief, can Grace and Josh find a way to share the secrets that they have kept from one another? Can the little baby Posie open their hearts to love?

Liz Fielding's SECRET BABY, SURPRISE PARENTS, is a beautiful romance of love and joy emerging from loss. As the legal implications of surrogacy and parenthood complicate the legal status of Posie, Liz Fielding does an excellent job at showing the emotional depth of Grace's tie to Posie. As the secrets unravel, Liz Fielding creates a emotional landscape that keeps the reader glued to the pages. One feels the emotional loss in the very language of the romance, a language that mesmerizes the reader with its depth as these two wounded souls work their way out of the past and the secrets that have kept them apart. From the depth of their loss, Grace and Josh risk honesty in a way they never have. As they open up to themselves and each other, they find themselves more able to see one another as they are rather than through the image they have built up of one another. From loss, Josh and Grace learn to reach out, creating a new emotional space in which love transforms them. Liz Fielding paints a magnificent portrait of a woman who moves from passivity and dependence upon others to a woman who recaptures her spark for life and an independence that allows her to love like never before with a joyous confidence in herself.

SECRET BABY, SURPRISE PARENTS is a highly emotional romance. Open the cover and be prepared to be glued to the pages from the first tense dynamic moments to the last twists in the epilogue. What an epilogue! Whereas an epilogue in the hands of less experienced authors often fades the story into a lackluster expected resolution, Liz Fielding uses the form of the epilogue to deliver the final wonderful dynamic images of the courage of love. Liz Fielding's epilogue does more than just completes or resolves ---- it transforms all that led up to it, leading the romance to a new height. I love a dynamic ending with a few twists, not just plot twists but something that transforms! Awesome!

In the context of the body of Liz Fielding's romances, SECRET BABY, SURPRISE PARENTS stands out as one of her most emotional romances --- and one of her best! If you love an emotional romance, reserve a block of time just to enjoy this romance uninterrupted. SECRET BABY, SURPRISE PARENTS is a romance you won't want to put down until the last page.

COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATIONS

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Quick Read, January 22, 2010

By 

Jacqueline (Lone Jack, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Baby, Surprise Parents (Harlequin Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)

I liked this fairly well. Occasionally something would happen and I'd think where did that come from? Somehow the character would infer something that I would never have figured out from the conversation or situation. The ending was a bit too simplistic for me, another big leap really. Not great writing and a little contrived. These characters were apart for 10 years which seemed a bit long considering what kept them apart. Still a fairly enjoyable quick read.