Okay, if the title of a book is Those Baby Blues, wouldn’t you think the art department would emphasize them on the cover? Instead, we have a man in an open shirt gazing at the reader with hooded eyes that might be blue or might not. That was a bit annoying. And another thing, the hero’s name is Treet. Yes, I know there is the actor Treat Williams, but he spells his name right. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the name Treet I get the mental image of a cute widdle birdy. Add to that a heroine named Hadleigh (call it one of my little prejudices, but I like conventional spelling) and I started off in a bad mood.

Hadleigh gives birth to a daughter, Samantha, at the same time and in the same hospital where big time movie star Treet Miller’s supermodel girlfriend, Cheyenne, is giving birth to his baby. Hadleigh is not in a good mood since her husband disappeared when he found out she was pregnant, and she delayed going to the hospital for so long that she can’t have an epidural. But when she finally does give birth, she gets some painkillers and floats off on a cloud of bliss and gossip about Treet.

Four years later, Hadleigh’s sorry husband is back and he wants a blood test. Guess what? Samantha is not his; she’s not Hadleigh’s either. Seems as though her baby and Treet’s were switched at birth by Cheyenne. Having set the plot in motion, Hadleigh’s husband disappears (never to be seen again), and Hadleigh goes to a counselor to see about this mess.

Treet is not happy with the news either. Cheyenne never bothered to exercise her parental rights, and he has been Mr. Mom to his daughter Caroline. She has brought out all the good in him and he loves her dearly and vows not to give her up without a fight.

The counselor tells them that they should spend some time with each other, get to know each other, and let the girls get to know each other. Sounds sensible to me, but Hadleigh spends most of the meeting in a fury (she gets mad all the time, over the slightest thing), but eventually she agrees to dinner at Treet’s.

After dinner, Treet suggests that they go find his pet turtle, BoBo, who roams the house and gets lost a lot. When they check the closet, the girls lock them in. While they wait for Treet’s bodyguard, Brutal (yes, Brutal), to find and free them, Treet and Hadleigh kiss and neck, and some sparks fly.

The girls like each other (frankly, I thought they were both brats) and Treet and Hadleigh spend lots of time together. They eventually end up in his Montana ranch, where Treet gets Hadleigh to help him with a new script, they have hot sex (Treet is quite the stud), and fall in love. Then Cheyenne tries something crooked, but it all comes out fine in the end, and they are married in a small ceremony marred only when Samantha hits Clint Eastwood in the crotch.

If I don’t like the characters, I won’t like the book. I didn’t like Hadleigh at all. If a character has a bad temper and never grows out of it, I won’t like her, and Hadleigh flew off the handle all throughout the book. As for Treet, the phrase “I’m hot and I know it” tells you all you need to know about him.

Those Baby Blues zoomed along at a goodly pace, but I never, ever warmed up to the characters. I’m afraid my bad mood at the beginning never let up, and in the end, I felt almost as ill-tempered as Hadleigh. If you like books about Hollywood and actors, Suzanne Brockmann wrote an excellent one called Heart Throb. As for me, I’ll switch into angry Hadleigh mode, and give those baby blues a black eye.