The Sheriff and the Baby

The Sheriff and the Baby – CC Coburn (Harlequin American Romance)

County Sheriff, Matt O’Malley is haunted by a personal tragedy. It’s something that could have been avoided had circumstances had been different, but his dream of raising a family in the lovely Rocky Mountain home he’d planned, had to be abandoned because of it.

A woman is driving in a snowstorm. She’s in labour, and is fleeing from the men who killed her husband. When her car is forced off the road, Matt is the only one there to help. Putting his duty before his instincts he gets her to hospital and he stays with her while she gives birth to her daughter. The woman calls herself Beth Ford, and for reasons she can’t disclose she fights the growing attraction between herself and the sheriff.

Matt senses that Beth’s lying, in more ways than one, especially when she puts his name on the birth certificate as the baby’s father. But Beth brings out the protective instinct in him. With perseverance he gleans more information – enough to make the enquiries that alert her pursuers to her whereabouts. Eventually, Beth trusts Matt enough to tell him her story, by which time they’ve fallen in love.

I first met Matt, his brothers, and the rest of O’Malley family in Colorado Christmas, the first book of the series. I like this bustling family, with their push and shove, their kids with attitude, and their abundance of nosiness. This second book has a large dollop of the same heart-warming charm, plus a sense of danger and intrigue that keeps the pot on the boil and the tension high until the very end. A good read that I highly recommend.

Down in the dumps/

Despite the good news that my two latest books, Straw in the Wind & Salting the Wound will be produced in audio, I’m having one of those unexplainable “down in the dumps” periods authors get from time to time. As a result I dislike my current work in progress. Keeping going is hard at the moment. It’s not that I doubt my ability to produce a readable book in the end, but to borrow from John Denver’s song, “Some days are diamonds and some days are stones,” I’m definitely living in the stone age at the moment. My characters are no longer talking to me, which is a disaster of major proportions. I’m going to take my own advice to others at such times and I’m going to plod on in the hope that the result won’t turn out to be as flat as I feel, and I’ll be able to polish the stones into diamonds when I edit. Like most advice, it’s easier said than actually done. Example follows.

Yesterday I read a blog about pet peeves. The topic was grammar. What surprised me most was that the blogger didn’t seem to be aware of any difference between grammar and spelling, but lumped them both as one under grammar. Ditto the followers, who threw punctuation into the brew as well. In the free-for-all of unanimous opinions, the conclusion was arrived at that mistakes in a book couldn’t be blamed on the editor, because they are overworked. They were, in fact, the fault of the author, who should have got it right in the first place.

One of the commentators, who stated that she offers advice about such matters on her own blog, managed to include three incorrect spellings of simple words in her short comment (grammer-verbage-distradtion). Most writers know that mistakes happen (putting it politely) but if you're going to dabble in pedantry, it would be wise to make sure that your own contribution is correct.

Angelina

Joining Daughter of Darkness at Belgrave House is ANGELINA my latest book in E format. Set in Georgian times, Angelina is a tale about a beautiful and wealthy young woman, who is restored to her aristocratic family after it was thought she’d perished at birth. Her arrival is a catalyst for plotting and intrigue, Angelina is not welcomed by some, especially her sister, Rosabelle, who is her rival in love. Her mother can’t remember giving birth to twin daughters either, though the resemblance between them is remarkable.

Once again, Gainsborough has designed a most wonderful jacket for the book. He must be a master of light.