Customer Reviews

Til There Was U

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ryan O'Fallon and Effie Wilson are co-working architects working on a huge mall project. Ryan makes the decision to visit his childhood Tennessee home on the banks of the Mississippi to get to the bottom of the rumor that he is the father of a baby that has been mysteriously left at his father's home. Effie insists upon tagging along, unwilling to let Ryan finish this project solo and be the recipient of the credit and likely awards from this fabulous project. After discovering that Bonnie is Ryan's half sister and that Bonnie's mother is suspiciously missing, Ryan vows to do whatever is necessary to help his father. Once he sees Effie with her arms and legs bare and her belly button ring shining in the hot Tennessee sun, Ryan realizes that it is going to be mightly difficult to keep his hands and mouth off of her. It isn't long before the two of them decide that one dose of hot steamy sex should be enough to get their mutual desire under control, but they are both very wrong and end up wanting each other more than ever. Between working on their project, helping with the baby and trying to find the baby's mother, Ryan and Effie are kept very busy. Not busy enough to keep them both from wondering what will happen between them after they return to California. Ryan and Effie are great together and while their romance is fun and lighthearted, they still generate an abundance of steam. Dianne Castell's descriptions of emotions and feelings are very realistically written, and her secondary characters are crucial to this story. I'm anxious to return to Tennessee and O'Fallon's Landing for the next book in this series. Great job, Dianne!

`Til There Was U by Dianne Castell is a treat from page one.

Ryan O'Fallon is floored when he is told he has a daughter. He decides to go back to O'Fallon's landing to get to the bottom of this story. But he is in the middle of a huge project so he talks his fellow architect Effie Wilson to go home with him to work. This sounds good in theory but once Ryan gets a good long look at the relaxed Effie all thoughts of work are gone.

Effie Wilson is determined to get that corner office so she wants this project to work. But now that she has left the big city her whole world changes. Effie has had this enormous crush on Ryan and no time like the present to act on it. Now that her heart is involved things change.

Effie and Ryan tear up the sheet and any other place that they can find. While they are steaming things up, Ryan finds out his dad is the baby's father and thugs are after the baby's mother.

`Til There Was U is a fast paced, hotter then hot, delightfully witty and a laugh out loud read. Besides the main characters there is a smoking romance between the O'Fallon's housekeeper and the local roundabout that will charm your socks off.

Dianne Castell's book deserves top shelf in any keeper bookcase. Looking forward to the next O'Fallon's story.

Architect Ryan O'Fallon needs to leave San Diego and return home to Tennessee to help in a family emergency. But his co-worker Effie Wilson isn't about to let him finish their mall plans on his own and take all the credit! She's going with him. What happens when they take a break from their busy big-city lives?

'TIL THERE WAS U is the first book in Dianne Castell's FOUR O'FALLONS AND A BABY series. It's off to a great start! Plenty of steam, funny characters and cleverly interwoven storylines add up to a captivating book that's hard to put down. I loved watching Ryan and Effie shed their California habits as they fit right into the O'Fallon's Landing lifestyle. I hoped they would both come to the same conclusion about what they want most in their lives. I enjoyed the extensive secondary romance between Thelma McAllister and Conrad Hastings, too. I'm looking forward to meeting more of the O'Fallon brothers as the series continues. And I can't wait to find out the full story behind baby Bonnie!

With her trademark humor and three-dimensional characters, Dianne Castell launches her Kensington Brava "O'Fallon Family" trilogy with the winning `Til There Was U. Turning the popular "secret baby" plot on its ear, Castell presents us with a secret mother instead, an adorable if vocal baby girl, and the O'Fallon patriarch and his three hunky sons. `Til There Was U features Ryan O'Fallon, who returns to his rural Tennessee home to help his father find the missing mother of baby Bonnie. Ryan's San Diego architectural firm coworker, Effie Wilson, comes along so they can complete a pressing project. An attraction that simmered in California ignites in the sultry nights along the Mississippi River, and suddenly there's a lot more between Ryan and Effie than blue prints and deadlines. Complicating matters are sinister men who are also searching for Bonnie's mom and won't stop at murder to locate her - a plot line that carries the reader on to the second installment in the series. As a bonus to this engaging story, Castell offers a secondary romance - a moving if unlikely pairing of a "wrong-side-of-the-levee" heroine and a seemingly irredeemable, spoiled-snob hero. The next book, The Way U Look Tonight, can't arrive soon enough for me!

I cannot believe this book has received an average of five stars. Am I missing something? I am a huge fan of romance novels and very discriminating when it comes to a story line. The main characters are at least somewhat feasible, but Conrad and Thelma? Come on! They didn't never have really talked to each other and then suddenly they supposedly fell in love with each other in about a week? And the similes! Dear god, if I had to read one more simile I was going to tear my eyes out. Maybe it's just me (after all, I am a northerner), but I find it hard to believe that such phrases as " hotter than a june bug in july" and "happier than pigs in mud" are tacked onto nearly EVERY sentence spoken by a southerner. Maybe I am wrong about that, but I didn't think this book was that great.

Ryan O'Fallon and Effie Wilson deserve this delightfully sexy story! A fast-paced book, laugh-out-loud funny, and must go on your keeper shelf! I look forward to more of Dianne Castell's books.

In Tennessee, fifty-two year old Rory O'Fallon knows the moment he sees the infant on his porch that he sired her; he also believes the mother, whom he loves, is in trouble to abandon her daughter Bonnie like this. Finally Rory realizes that he cannot help his beloved Mimi DuPont without help; he tells the local paper that his son Ryan is the father until he can insure that his former office manager is safe.

Rory calls his son in San Diego architect Ryan O'Fallon, whose legendary love life process time is the subject of office pools. In fact his greatest rival at Designs Unlimited Effie Wilson has won the last two pools about Ryan's love life (or lack of) as she thinks she knows why he is slumping and why the stud sweats when she is near him. However, Ryan must go home as his dad needs him even while working a project with Effie. In O'Fallon's Landing, Effie completes her magic as her hunk finds he cannot resist her lure.

Dianne Castell writes an entertaining contemporary romance with a bit of a mystery that brings the lead pair to his hometown though hiding the truth about Bonnie seems odd even rationalized as a safety measure. Effie is terrific as she knows she loves the womanizing Ryan, who must choose between the perfect woman and perfect job. Fans will appreciate this fine tale and look forward to novels starring his brothers, Keefe the soap opera star and Quaid the search and rescue expert in Kodiak, Alaska.

Harriet Klausner

I started this book late in the evening thinking I could just relax before bed and I stayed up till I finished it. It is just that kind of book. Ryan and Effie are co-workers who have been attracted to each other for months. They have to travel to Ryan's hometown because of a mystery baby who may or may not be Ryan's. Their attraction gets even stronger, they decide to act on it 'once' to get each other out of their systems and not mess up their working relationship. They find out 'once' is not enough. I love how all of the characters relate to each other. The sub-plot between Thelma and Conrad(the sleaze) is a really nice twist. Ms. Castell makes her characters totally real and human with just the right amount of humor and sex. All in all this was a great story. I can't wait for the next in this series.

Ryan is living the great single life in California except he has a thing for sexy co-worker Effie. Then Ryan gets a phone call from the local hometown newspaper who is asking about his baby. Baby? Could it be his? Ryan needs to get back home to O'Fallon's Landing, Tennessee to check with his father the man who has the baby and is claiming that Ryan is the daddy. But Ryan and Effie are working on a big project together so Effie packs a goes to Tennessee with Ryan. Once they get in the slower life of O'Fallon's Landing the sexual attraction can not be stop. This is a fun and sexy ride. With a couple of side stories woven in the plot Ms. Castell's book is pure entertainment. I can't wait for the next book in the series.

This is the first in a series by author Dianne Castrell.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first ordered this book, but it is very cute.
The main characters are majorly adorable, and the secondary characters are very loveable.