Dancing with Daddy, Susan Hawke

There were three moments in the story that really grabbed me and brought so much enjoyment to my reading.  The first was the communication between the men before they ever met in person.  Their emails were filled with exploration, honesty, and a simplicity that set a true beginning for their friendship and a foundation for their later romantic relationship.  Second was their confessions.  They were simple and straightforward that, when coupled with the first moment I mentioned, were believable and earnest.  Third was the end scene that brought everyone and everything together.  Creating the family both men had always craved but hadn't found until then was a fantastic way to end the story.

Those moments aside, there was a very serious pacing issue.  It was difficult to read continuously without taking breaks because it constantly felt like we were getting nowhere fast.  I'm all for a slow-build where appropriate, but this was a little too slow for me.  Also frustrating was the insta-trust in bringing a stranger, even a blood-related one, into your home with your child.  Amazing email communication and a few phone calls aside, there just wasn't enough there for me to trust their initial living situation.

Yes, this is a fictional story, but it still brought up some serious red flags for me.  Being a single mother myself and also having had the not-really-a-pleasure of beginning a couple relationships through fantastic messages and calls only to have it all turn out to be lies only made me immensely grateful I didn't introduce these cretins to my children.  This story was a sweet and idealized version of a relationship lots of single people engage in and was more fantastical in their genesis than based in reality.  So reader beware, there are enough issues that you'll need to suspend reality to believe their beginning wasn't super sketch.

The one thing that wasn't sketchy despite having all the hallmarks of betrayal and heartache, was the paternity of a sweet little girl.  When it's discovered that blood types didn't match, the relief was palpable under the weight of serious health concerns and the laughter wasn't out of place at all.  Sometimes that's just how relief is expressed.  And knowing she didn't cheat, it was just some incredibly close timing between a moment of rekindled passion and then finding your forever person within a very short time-span, was a huge relief to me as a reader.

Overall this was a very sweet story that moved slowly, but had a great ending for three good people who deserved all the happiness they found together.

*$4.99 on Amazon

I love my daughter, but finding out she wasn’t biologically mine is the best news ever.

I’m a widower who is too scared to have the stupid test that would tell me whether or not I even have the gene that would mean dealing with a horrible illness and certain death. A gene that could’ve also been passed to my child, had she been mine.

She’ll need her father, if something ever does happen to me…That’s why I search for Maddie’s biological father, and when I find him, ask him to become part of her life.

What I didn’t expect is for him to become my best friend. Shane is fun and easygoing, the exact opposite of me. He makes me laugh. He’s the perfect antidote for my neurotic existence. And he’s bi, like me.

But am I courageous enough to take the leap into falling in love with him?