Talented authors can make readers forgive almost anything and there is no doubt that Ms. Andersen is a talented author. I accepted without a qualm a hero who ignored his son for thirteen years but now wants to do the right thing – even if that is taking him away from the only home he has ever known. It is only toward the end that I had issues with this fact.

Jake Bradshaw did the honorable thing when his girlfriend Kari got pregnant, but it wasn’t a bed of roses. Overnight he was living with an emotional hormone-driven bad-tempered pregnant shrew. After being discharged after the birth, she hemorrhaged at home and within hours was gone. When Kari’s parents gave him a chance to achieve his dream of going to college and leaving backwater Razor Bay, Washington, he took it, giving up his custody. Once gone he found plenty of excuses for not visiting his son, and after a while the fed-up grandparents banned him from his son’s life.

Now they are both dead, and legal guardianship is just a signature away. Since he lives in New York City, he plans to pack up his son and return home. However, since he has been on the receiving end of bad parenting himself, he has made plans to spend time with Austin in Razor Bay, before disrupting his life. The first meeting with Austin as he encounters his son’s disdain hammers home the reality of their non-existent relationship. Observing Austin’s interaction with Jennifer Salazar, he seeks her council on how to establish rapport.

Jennifer Salazar loves Austin like a younger brother, and since it has been almost two months since Austin’s grandfather died she took Jake’s continued silence as confirmation of his indifference. She had hoped to become Austin’s guardian but those hopes are shattered with Jake’s appearance. It would be so easy to sabotage their relationship, but she has been in Austin’s life for over ten years, and is aware of his discarded dreams of having a dad.

Of course, there is instant chemistry between the two, but each has a valid reason not to act on it. Jennifer has spent so many years hating the man for his total neglect of his son. And Jake, while interested, has more important things on his mind, like thirteen missed years.

With some of Ms. Andersen’s previous books the dialogue has seemed somewhat over exaggerated or it is used too much to fill in the background of the characters, but the flow of the characters’ interchange in this book is more natural or toned down. Don’t worry though, the characters still have plenty of her trademark sass.

This book is first in the series, and has very solid secondary characters, like Jennifer’s best friend Tasha and Jake’s half-brother Max Bradshaw. Austin seems very much like a 13-year-old. Of course, I have always thought that Ms. Andersen had a talent for writing kids.

I debated back and forth on the grade from B to B-. The book was a solid B until the final actions of the hero and the resulting clash between Jake and Jenny, which convinced me he still didn’t have a clue about fatherhood. It just seemed to reiterated the hero’s self-centeredness. And while his decision at the end wasn’t a surprise there wasn’t enough groundwork in place to make it entirely believable.

While not a perfect book, it is an entertaining one, and one that I can recommend.