To A Macallister Born (Series Plus)

Rating:
Summary: Having a little faith
Review: Jennifer Mackane's life revolves around her little boy Joey. And though Joey adamantly demands she find a "groom guy", Jennifer is as determined not to remarry for reasons of her own. But when Jack MacAllister, a friend of a friend, passes through town, she finds herself bending her own rule not to get involved with any man for the rest of her life. The "essence of femininity" she was so sure she had deliberately shut down, opens up to this man who makes it clear that there is more to their chemistry than blind attraction. He wants to discover what it is and has no qualms about confronting her about it.

I found this story be very hard to get into. Pickart makes a lot of references to characters whom I suspect are in another series. She also spends a good amount of time implementing them into the story. They tended to predominate the story at times and I would rather have learned more about Jack and Jennifer instead. As it was, I found both characters hard to sympathize with. Jack is constantly second-guessing Jennifer and her motivations for starting their relationship though he initially railroaded her into it. He has a hard time believing that he was capable of even that. He puts a dark spin on what she says to him when it comes to words he associates with commitment. In addition to this, rather than redeem himself based on his own judgement, Jack falls back on the judgement of the secondary characters. Jennifer, the more admirable of the two characters, tells herself she is strong after the devastation of her first marriage but compromises this by allowing herself to be railroaded by Jack in the first place. Pickart manages to write an average story here and sets it in a picturesque location but I felt her characterizations and development could have been a lot stronger and understandable if she had devoted a little more time to it.

Rating:
Summary: Having a little faith
Review: Jennifer Mackane's life revolves around her little boy Joey. And though Joey adamantly demands she find a "groom guy", Jennifer is as determined not to remarry for reasons of her own. But when Jack MacAllister, a friend of a friend, passes through town, she finds herself bending her own rule not to get involved with any man for the rest of her life. The "essence of femininity" she was so sure she had deliberately shut down, opens up to this man who makes it clear that there is more to their chemistry than blind attraction. He wants to discover what it is and has no qualms about confronting her about it.

I found this story be very hard to get into. Pickart makes a lot of references to characters whom I suspect are in another series. She also spends a good amount of time implementing them into the story. They tended to predominate the story at times and I would rather have learned more about Jack and Jennifer instead. As it was, I found both characters hard to sympathize with. Jack is constantly second-guessing Jennifer and her motivations for starting their relationship though he initially railroaded her into it. He has a hard time believing that he was capable of even that. He puts a dark spin on what she says to him when it comes to words he associates with commitment. In addition to this, rather than redeem himself based on his own judgement, Jack falls back on the judgement of the secondary characters. Jennifer, the more admirable of the two characters, tells herself she is strong after the devastation of her first marriage but compromises this by allowing herself to be railroaded by Jack in the first place. Pickart manages to write an average story here and sets it in a picturesque location but I felt her characterizations and development could have been a lot stronger and understandable if she had devoted a little more time to it.