Baby Bet: His Secret Son

Rating:
Summary: The son returns
Review: What happens when you finally find out who your father is. A father that you were taught to hate, someone who dumped your mother when he found out about her pregnancy? Going to the Family celebration to confront his father and suddenly his father falls down with a heart attack. Imagine the guilt. Enter Dr. Kara Mac Allister, the adopted daughter of Andrew's father's brother. Sparks fly between the two. And Andrew finds out that not everything is as it seems.

Rating:
Summary: The son returns
Review: What happens when you finally find out who your father is. A father that you were taught to hate, someone who dumped your mother when he found out about her pregnancy? Going to the Family celebration to confront his father and suddenly his father falls down with a heart attack. Imagine the guilt. Enter Dr. Kara Mac Allister, the adopted daughter of Andrew's father's brother. Sparks fly between the two. And Andrew finds out that not everything is as it seems.

Rating:
Summary: Misunderstandings prove to be the backbone of this story
Review: When Andrew Malone confronts Robert MacAllister about the desertion of his mother, he never expects the older man to suffer from a heart attack right in front of his eyes. His plan to force MacAllister to admit to one and all that his mother did matter falls through and guilt settles in as he joins the rest of the family at the hospital where one of their own is on staff. Dr. Kara MacAllister rethinks her instantaneous attraction to Andrew Malone when her uncle collapses at the family reunion. But when she notices him lurking in the shadows of the hospital, she can't help but feel that he is sincere when he claims that he didn't intend to kill Robert and she also feels an affinity towards him when she senses his loneliness. In the two days they get to know each other, Andrew and Kara bond quickly over a baby Kara is considering adopting and over the stories of their past concerning Andrew's mother and the desertion of Kara's parents.

Eventually, after hammering out the truth with Robert and establishing that neither he nor Kara wants to marry, they go their separate ways with Andrew's half-hearted agreement to come back to get to know the MacAllister side of his family. Separately, as they go on with their lives, Andrew and Kara come to the conclusion that they love each other but neither makes an attempt to seek the other out. Andrew is convinced that Kara will never want to marry him and vice versa. When his half-brothers demand that he come to visit their father, Andrew thinks he has found the perfect excuse to embrace not just his family but Kara as well.

Joan Elliot Pickart is writing a book with a promising premise but her execution is lacking. Her narrative is episodic and put together like patchwork instead of being fluid or engaging. The MacAllister family is large and boisterous and she attempts to fit in every character she can. The length of the book is longer which makes this more feasible but similarly, the length should have allowed for more development in Andrew and Kara's relationship. Instead, the book falters because Andrew and Kara spend more time apart than they do together. In addition to this, the baby they bond over becomes a source of contention between them in the second half of the story when Andrew finds out that Kara is planning on adopting the baby and depriving it of a father. He accuses her of being selfish in attempting to do so even though he later rationalizes that the baby would be deprived of nothing. He then spends the remainder of the story attempting to figure out why he would lash out at her in such a manner. As a result of so many misunderstandings and lack of communication on the part of both Andrew and Kara, I found it hard to like either one of them. Time that is spent revealing to the MacAllister family what is wrong with their relationship would have been better spent discussing it together in order to overcome their own obstacles rather than relying on the judgement of others.

Rating:
Summary: Misunderstandings prove to be the backbone of this story
Review: When Andrew Malone confronts Robert MacAllister about the desertion of his mother, he never expects the older man to suffer from a heart attack right in front of his eyes. His plan to force MacAllister to admit to one and all that his mother did matter falls through and guilt settles in as he joins the rest of the family at the hospital where one of their own is on staff. Dr. Kara MacAllister rethinks her instantaneous attraction to Andrew Malone when her uncle collapses at the family reunion. But when she notices him lurking in the shadows of the hospital, she can't help but feel that he is sincere when he claims that he didn't intend to kill Robert and she also feels an affinity towards him when she senses his loneliness. In the two days they get to know each other, Andrew and Kara bond quickly over a baby Kara is considering adopting and over the stories of their past concerning Andrew's mother and the desertion of Kara's parents.

Eventually, after hammering out the truth with Robert and establishing that neither he nor Kara wants to marry, they go their separate ways with Andrew's half-hearted agreement to come back to get to know the MacAllister side of his family. Separately, as they go on with their lives, Andrew and Kara come to the conclusion that they love each other but neither makes an attempt to seek the other out. Andrew is convinced that Kara will never want to marry him and vice versa. When his half-brothers demand that he come to visit their father, Andrew thinks he has found the perfect excuse to embrace not just his family but Kara as well.

Joan Elliot Pickart is writing a book with a promising premise but her execution is lacking. Her narrative is episodic and put together like patchwork instead of being fluid or engaging. The MacAllister family is large and boisterous and she attempts to fit in every character she can. The length of the book is longer which makes this more feasible but similarly, the length should have allowed for more development in Andrew and Kara's relationship. Instead, the book falters because Andrew and Kara spend more time apart than they do together. In addition to this, the baby they bond over becomes a source of contention between them in the second half of the story when Andrew finds out that Kara is planning on adopting the baby and depriving it of a father. He accuses her of being selfish in attempting to do so even though he later rationalizes that the baby would be deprived of nothing. He then spends the remainder of the story attempting to figure out why he would lash out at her in such a manner. As a result of so many misunderstandings and lack of communication on the part of both Andrew and Kara, I found it hard to like either one of them. Time that is spent revealing to the MacAllister family what is wrong with their relationship would have been better spent discussing it together in order to overcome their own obstacles rather than relying on the judgement of others.