The Baby Plan (9 Months Later)

Rating:
Summary: passionate relationship novel
Review: Architect Jake Manning seems to have everything going with a career that has earned him respect and women who desperately want him. However, Jake feels incomplete as if he is missing out on the most important aspects of life. He realizes what he covets and concludes that raising a baby would make his life perfectly complete. As he does in business, the bachelor develops a baby plan since adoption agencies reject his application.

Jake decides mechanic Harley Emerson would be the ideal mother to birth his child though he will pay her to stay out of their lives afterwards. However, Harley craves respectability and security that Jake can provide her. She tenders a counteroffer of a marriage of convenience. Reluctantly, he agrees, but neither expected to fall in love with one another especially when the matchmaker has yet to be born.

On the surface, this contemporary romance sounds inane with its marriage of convenience, male biological clock ticking theme. However, the lead couple makes the tale worth reading as their needs seem quite different but are actually the same which leads to a passionate relationship novel. Readers who enjoy a family drama will take imminent delight in Susan Gable's delectable THE BABY PLAN.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT - HEARTRENDING - LOVABLE!
Review: Boy am I glad I don't have to agree with some reviewers [grin].

Cover is an excellent match with the story.
Jake Manning and Harley Emerson are ideal leads for a different marriage of convenience. I thought it was neat that she insisted on a legal marriage and conception the "natural way", no illegitimate child for her.

It was humorous that Duffy, at 25 wanted to protected his brother who was 35 but it wasn't hard to understand his reasoning. Their sister, Mel with her husband, Peter and their adorable twins, Grace and Hope was a bit more mellow.

Harley was sure getting a crash course in child care one night. I felt a bit sorry for her in learning what she had gone through in her young life but she came through with flying colors. Yeah! for Charlie. He gave Jake a couple of moments of unease.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - great story to enjoy - maybe even a second time.

Rating:
Summary: A great debut from a talented author!
Review: Courtesy of Love Romances

Jake Manning has a plan, a BABY PLAN that is! He has everything a man could possibly desire, except for one thing... a baby. He is so busy though, that he has no desire for a wife to go along with the baby, in addition to the fact that he has already had experience in the husband department and didn't have much luck there. Having raised his younger siblings pretty much on his own, he is feeling a bit of "Empty Nest" syndrome, now that they are grown up and starting to have families of their own. So he starts to hanker after having his own child, without the stresses that marrying a woman would add to his life. He knows he can raise a child by himself. Now, he just needs to find the woman to go along with his plan.

Harley Emerson is a young woman who has had nothing but a string of bad luck in her life. She is highly intelligent, but has no formal higher education. She has no family, having spent most of her young life being shuffled from foster home to foster home. She is a brilliant mechanic, but having been arrested and convicted for a crime she didn't commit, she finds it rather difficult to get and keep a good job. She's flat broke and has no one to turn to, her only friend being her former parole officer, a man who took her under his wing and tried to help her overcome her past.

When Jake meets Harley at the garage where his car is being fixed, he is quite intrigued by the young woman. When she loses her job due to a misunderstanding between Jake and her employer, he feels responsible. As he gets to know her while trying to help her out, he decides she is the perfect woman for his plan to have a child. Upon approaching Harley with his idea, going so far as to send a "Daddy Résumé," she is at first insulted and infuriated. She finally comes around though, but not without making a few conditions of her own - she will only agree to a traditional conception and a marriage of convenience until the baby is born. No child of hers will be born outside the boundaries of marriage, even if she won't be keeping it herself.

All goes according to plan; until a monkey wrench is thrown in to the works... they find love. Jake has been hurt and betrayed by every woman who has been in his life, the only exception being his younger sister, so he finds it hard to trust Harley. And she is convinced a fine upstanding citizen of Erie, PA, like Jake, could never love an out-of-work mechanic with a record. Now comes the biggest challenge of all, how to overcome the obstacles to find the happiness both so desperately desire.

What a wonderful debut novel! Ms. Gable packs an emotional wallop with this story. This is one book that is totally and completely character driven, but circumstances between Harley and Jake are cause for some conflict in the story, helping to flesh it out and make it all the more compelling to read.

Harley and Jake are strong characters, with strong personalities, so it is no surprise that this story tugs at the heartstrings. Harley has had a tough life, molding her into the woman she is. There are times when she is reliving past experiences that the reader cannot help but feel the full intensity of her pain. She is a complex blend of woman and child, and that is evident throughout.

Jake's feelings for his brother and sister are overwhelming to him at times, causing much inner turmoil when it is apparent that his feelings for Harley and his family are at odds with what everyone expects of him. Also, his pain over those he feels deserted him when he needed them color his way of thinking and his attitude in general, until he learns to let go of the hurt finally.

The reader knows from the start that Jake and Harley are meant for each other, and can't wait for them to figure that out themselves. They need each other, and the journey to that realization makes for a powerful read. If this story is any indication, Ms. Gable will be a force to contend with in the genre. She knows how to tell her story with plenty of emotion to enthrall the reader, while balancing it out with a strong plot line and even stronger characters. This reviewer will be eagerly awaiting her next book, THE MOMMY PLAN, due out in the summer of 2003.

Rating:
Summary: Stupendous!!!
Review: Harley Emerson dreams of respectability, an education, of making a place for herself in this world. Jake Manning dreams of having a child. The two strangers come together and form a plan that leads to a temporary family. Harley will give Jake his baby, Jake will help her fulfill her goals. But you know what they say about the best laid plans...sometimes they don't work the way you expect. Sometimes, if you're very lucky, they work better. Jake and Harley find that their baby plan has led to something more...maybe love?

A stupendous debut book by talented new author, Susan Gable.

Rating:
Summary: 9 months later...
Review: Having raised his younger brother and sister pretty much from their earliest years, Jake Manning is now experiencing major "empty nest" syndrome. He wants to hear the excited laughter of a child in his home again. Harley Emerson has experienced life at its cruelest. She has the chance to finally get out from under and make something of herself when Jake makes her an offer she finds hard to refuse. What neither of them count on is the pitter patter of their hearts along the way. Harley is a very unique heroine and Jake is a hero any woman would drool over--sexy, responsible, good with kids. Susan Gable has sprinkled a cast of wonderful supporting characters throughout as well. I read this book in one day because I was hard put to lay it down. I was involved in the emotions of the characters. When Harley cried, I wanted to join her. A definite must-read.

Rating:
Summary: An author to watch for!
Review: I had the pleasure of meeting Susan Gable in Denver last year, and her sparkling personality shines through in her writing. You won't want to miss reading THE BABY PLAN. With loveable characters and a fun twist on the plot of an arranged marriage, this book makes for a delightful read. Harley is a strong character, determined to get what she wants, yet senstitive to the needs and feelings of others--she'd make a great best friend! And Jake is a loveable hero with qualities any woman would find desireable in a mate for life. Susan is definitely an author I'll read again and again. I look forward to her next book, upcoming this summer!

Rating:
Summary: An author to watch for!
Review: I had the pleasure of meeting Susan Gable in Denver last year, and her sparkling personality shines through in her writing. You won't want to miss reading THE BABY PLAN. With loveable characters and a fun twist on the plot of an arranged marriage, this book makes for a delightful read. Harley is a strong character, determined to get what she wants, yet senstitive to the needs and feelings of others--she'd make a great best friend! And Jake is a loveable hero with qualities any woman would find desireable in a mate for life. Susan is definitely an author I'll read again and again. I look forward to her next book, upcoming this summer!

Rating:
Summary: An Exceptional Heroine
Review: Jake Manning has raised his younger siblings and now finds he wants a child of his own ... without the customary wife.

Ex-con and mechanic Harley Emerson meets Jake's baby plan qualifications, plus she's without a job and desperate to get herself through college. Jake can provide the money; all Harley has to do is agree to have his baby. Living with Jake is harder than anything Harley's had to do. How can she walk away from her child and the nicest guy she's ever met?

An ideal marriage it is not, but beguiling Harley proves too enchanting for Jake, and soon, he's not sure he can let her go.

Susan Gable's story is warm and charming, the writing fluid and engaging, but it's her characters who are outstanding. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Jake Manning is a sucessful man running his own business. It seems that he has everything good car, nice home, lots of money, but what he really wants is a baby.

That is where Harley Emerson comes in. She is a machanic with a record (she didnt do it) and just got fired from her job, and has no where to go.

Jake strikes a deal-they get married and have a baby and afterward Harley is free to leave him and their baby. What happens next-you have to read to find out.

I found this book to be very interesting. THe characters are intreging and the plot is very exciting. I would recogmend this to any romance fan!

Rating:
Summary: And baby makes three...
Review: THE BABY PLAN by Susan Gable (A Harlequin Superromance)

Jake Manning wants to have a baby. He raised his younger brother and sister himself, and with them grown up and out of the house, he still feels the need to be a parent. But with one bad marriage behind him, and a mother that had abandoned them for another man, he doesn't trust the opposite sex and believes that there is no such thing as a good relationship. He does not want to get married, but he wants to father his own baby and raise the baby on his own.

In walks Harley Emerson, living in poverty and with a police record. She is working as a car mechanic when he picks up his Mustang at the mechanic's shop and sees her working underneath his car. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, she is fired from her job in front of Jake's eyes as he tells the owner that someone stole his cell phone from his car. With her police record, she is falsely accused of the theft. Jake knows she's innocent - he feels it in his gut - but there is nothing he can do to persuade the owner of the shop.

Jake feels incredibly guilty for what happens to Harley, and as he starts to think of her fate, he realizes that she may be the answer to his dreams: he needs a mother for his unborn baby, but he doesn't want to get married either. What if he takes Harley in, gives her what she wants (an education and a job), and asks her to have his baby?

The plot line seems a little implausible, but I found the book was well written and made things believable. Susan Gable did a good job with developing well-rounded and likeable characters, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I would definitely read another romance by her, and give thumbs up to THE BABY PLAN.