Thursday, 5 December 2013

(ARC) Book Review (281): The Surprise Holiday Dad (Safe Harbor #12) - Jacqueline Diamond


The Surprise Holiday Dad

I didn't realise at first that a) this was part of a series and that b) this was not the first book, the great thing is, is that it doesn't feel like you have to have read the books before this one, it reads well as a standalone, but because I really enjoyed this book, the settings and characters, I will definitely be hunting down the previous books, especially if they are all as well written and enjoyable as this story was.
I always seem to gravitate towards love stories that feature kids who are meeting a parent for the first time and the interaction between the two, adding in a little back story like this one did and I'm hooked.
After discovering that the Mother of his six year old son Reggie has died, Wade who has never been allowed to ever see his son, makes his way back to his hometown of Safe Harbor to finally meet his son and to be a part of his life, Reggie is being raised by his Mother's sister Adrienne who wants custody of him, but Wade refuses to let that happen, especially now that he has his son in his life.
Having to both compromise, with them both having Reggie's best interests at heart, they both discover that the three of them could become the family that they've all wanted.
If they could just admit their feelings for each other, they they could both end up with the Happily Ever After they deserve
I thoroughly enjoyed this, I read it in a matter of hours, Jacqueline's writing is great and her characters are extremely likeable, making for a great romance.
Highly recommended.
I give this 4/5 stars.


When you read an author's biography, sometimes it appears that everything went smoothly.  Well, I'm here to report that it took ten years of rejection slips (that's starting when I graduated from college--I also collected a few earlier) before I sold my first book.
It was a Regency romance called Lady in Disguise (1982), and it sold in hardcover to Walker and Co. for $2,500.  Not exactly a fortune even thirty years ago!  The good news is that I've reissued it on Amazon.com,BarnesandNoble.com, and on Smashwords, which distributes it widely.
But let's go back and hit the highlights…
I was born in 1949 in Menard, Texas.  My father, the only doctor in town, delivered me and my brother, who's two years older, at home with the assistance of a nurse. 
When I was six, we moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he did his residency in psychiatry, and five years later, we moved to Nashville, Tennessee.  With a psychiatrist for a father and a ceramic sculptor for a mother, I grew up in a very creative environment.
I wrote my first story at age four or five.  By six, I knew I wanted to be a writer.  My early publications included an essay in the old American GirlMagazine and book reviews in our local paper.
After graduating from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, I spent a year in Europe on a writing fellowship from the Thomas Watson Foundation.  The play I wrote about Lorenzo de' Medici never did get produced, but I had a great time and learned a lot!  I still try to keep my Italian and French (both of which I'd studied for years) reasonably rust-free.
My next move, at age 23, was to Southern California, where my brother lived.  I worked briefly in public relations, then for two newspapers and The Associated Press bureau in Los Angeles.  I covered a variety of news stories as well as theater from 1980-1983.  In 1993-1994, I wrote a nationally distributed TV column for AP.  Along the way, I had the fun of interviewing stars including Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Debbie Reynolds, LeVar Burton, Dick Van Dyke, Pearl Bailey, Lily Tomlin, James Garner and many more.
All this time, I was writing plays, scripts and books.  Except for a couple of plays produced locally, they all came back with those painful rejection slips. 
In 1980, I fell in love with a PBS series based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  I read all her books, discovered Regency romances, and got inspired. 
A year later, I sold my first two Regencies (the second was Song for a Lady, also now available as an ebook).  Since then, I've sold one horror novel (Echoes), one fantasy novel (Shadowlight), two hardcover mysteries (The Eyes of a Stranger and Danger Music), a paranormal romance (Touch me in the Dark) and romances in subgenres ranging from romantic suspense to screwball comedy.  My publishers have included William Morrow, St. Martin's, Berkley, Five Star, Walker and Co., and Harlequin.
I've written under the names Jacqueline Diamond, Jackie Hyman, Jackie Diamond Hyman, and (for Berkley's old Second Chance at Love line) Jacqueline Topaz, as well as one book under the name Jacqueline Jade for Silhouette Desire.  Publishers used to want exclusive names for an author; today, they're more likely to recognize the value of cross-publicizing. In reissuing my books, I'm putting them all under the Jacqueilne Diamond name, but using "writing as" where I originally used a different name.
I'm excited to have released my first original novel as an ebook. Out of Her Universe is a parallel worlds science fiction story that is very special to me. It's the first of a planned series.
My husband and I live in Southern California. Our younger son lives and teaches in Tucson, Arizona, while our older son works for Google.  



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