Baby, I’m yours, by Karen Templeton

After much prodding and pushing, nagging and cajoling (because a lot of that is needed to get me to read a book, obviously *ahem*) I finally caved in and got this novel. It is the third installment in Ms Templeton’s Guys and Daughters miniseries (Dear Santa and Yours, Mine… or Ours? being the first two), and also the first book by her that I’ve read.

May I say how glad I am to have friends who will keep piling great book recommendations on me?

Here’s the blurb:

Baby, be mine!
Kevin Vaccaro just found out he was a father… of a five-month-old! He’d put up a hell of a fight to overcome his troubled past. That was nothing compared to the battle he was about to wage for his child’s future.
Julianne McCabe had no intention of giving up her sister’s child—the child she loved as her own—without a fight. Yet that was before Kevin started bonding with his daughter. Before he awoke feelings that made the grieving widow long to share more than late-night feedings. But was she ready to risk her heart again to be the wife Kevin needed? To become the family they both wanted?
Guys and daughters—they’re the first men in their daughters’ lives—but they won’t be the last!

This is a Silhouette Special Edition romance novel; the story is much better than the blurb suggests (but then, what else is new?). Seriously though, while there are some widely used staples of the romance genre here, such as the grieving widow, the surprise baby, the was-good-for-nothing-turned-good hero, the meddling parent. The difference between other novels and this one is all in the execution, as is most often the case with good writing, regardless of genre.

This novel is barely 210 pages, with great pacing up until almost the very end. The plot is actually quite straightforward, with no major dramatic twists. There’s no chase, criminal conspiracy, blood, what have you—this book is about people finding themselves and each other, and as such, it’s completely character driven. (more…)