Heart of the Dragon (Atlantis, Book 1)

Book Description

Grace Carlyle's world was about to change . . .

Deep in the jungle on the trail of her missing brother, Grace never expected to find a secret world populated by mythological monsters -- nor guarded by a sword-wielding being whose beauty put mortal men to shame.

Darius en Kragin belongs to a race of shape-shifting warriors sworn to guard Atlantis and kill all travelers who stray within its boundaries. Yet when Grace stumbles into his realm, he finds himself tempted to betray his centuries-old vow.

Now their forbidden love will either bring their worlds together -- or tear them both apart.

Don't miss this sexy new story from the author of The Stone Prince and The Pleasure Slave.

Customer Reviews:

Not As Great As I Hoped.......2007-10-04

Extra crispy love story but a little soggy when it comes to the plot. Now don't get me wrong, I love alternate beauty meets the beast/sexy dragon shape shifter as much as any other girl but I found major flaws when it came to the main characters. Grace, our spunky heroin needed to get her priorities striate. She's searching for her lost brother and yet through out the book it seems all she wants to do is get laid. How could anyone think about sex when their only brother has disappeared? It kind of bothered me how one minute she's a proud, sassy, resourceful female and then the next she turns into a weak lovesick puppy who lust over a man who pretty much tells her `I`m going to do what I want to you when I want whether you like it or not.' and she answers by saying `Well okay'. Come on, show some dignity girl!
And then there's Darius, your average tragic hero. For three hundred years he shows no emotions whatsoever then suddenly in walks Grace then BAM! He's angry, sad, smiles and gets a hard-on all within the first five minutes of seeing her! Where's the development? The suspense? I know 90% of paranormal romance novels center around sex but come on! Give them a little time to develop their relationship first. By chapter four they were already all over each other so by the time their big love scenes came around the reward wasn't as gratifying as it should of been.

Boring conflict.......2007-08-16

I read the description for this - dragons, vampires, Atlantis - and I was hooked into buying it. I'm sorry I did.

The hero is a guardian of Atlantis; the heroine is a human wondering around trying to find her brother. She stumbles into Atlantis, meets the hero, love at first sight, but! He's got to kill her because she found out the secret that Atlantis exists.

That's the conflict - he's got to do his duty and protect the secret. But I know that since it is a romance novel, he's not going to do it. The hero killing the heroine doesn't scream happy ending. The plot goes on and on, his dueling emotions drag out until I want to smack him. Then finally, three quarters the way through the book, he decides he can't do it. What a shocker, let me tell you.

The worldbuilding, the setting, the imaginative story were all wonderful. The conflict between the hero and the heroine ruined all that.

A light Delight.......2007-08-05

A quick light and easy read, this delightful book has the story of the Dragons of Atlantis and a human woman who stumbles into their world.

Loved it! Great way to begin a new series.......2007-05-09

This is the first book in the atlantis series and it is phenominal. I love the characthers. They are well developed together and individually Their interaction is funny and makes sense all the way through the novel. This is a great read and worth the money. My bet is you read it more than once. :)

Good idea, but didn't work for me.......2007-04-27

I had such expectations for this book, but unfortunately it did not deliver. Darius was intended to be this deadly assasin, a ruthless and extremely dangerous man/dragon and I just did not get that from his character AT ALL. He supposedly considers killing Grace, but author does not convey any sense of real danger or suspense. Even Grace herself was not too worried. They search for missing people while running out of time, but stop constantly to full around. And for 20 something virgin whose life (as well as the life of her brother) was in such danger-- all she really wants to do is have sex with Darius, how believable is that? In general, i dislike books when women can't "resist" the appeal of the hero, and throw themselves all over them despite any common sense. I also read "Jewel of Atlantis" by the same author and hated it, so this is it for me.

Hearts In Atlantis (All You Want to Know)

Average customer rating:

Stick with the written version
Yawn..........
As Good as it gets
A story with heart
Read This Book

Hearts In Atlantis (All You Want to Know)

Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 0671582356
Release Date: 1999-09-14

Amazon.com

Stephen King's collection of five stories about '60s kids reads like a novel. The best is "Low Men in Yellow Coats," about Bobby Garfield of Harwich, Connecticut, who craves a Schwinn for his 11th birthday. But his widowed mom is impoverished, and so bitter that she barely loves him. King is as good as Spielberg or Steven Millhauser at depicting an enchanted kid's-eye view of the world, and his Harwich is realistically luminous to the tiniest detail: kids bashing caps with a smoke-blackened rock, a car grille "like the sneery mouth of a chrome catfish," a Wild Mouse carnival ride that makes kids "simultaneously sure they were going to live forever and die immediately."

Bobby's mom takes in a lodger, Ted Brautigan, who turns the boy on to great books like Lord of the Flies. Unfortunately, Ted is being hunted by yellow-jacketed men--monsters from King's Dark Tower novels who take over the shady part of town. They close in on Ted and Bobby, just as a gang of older kids menace Bobby and his girlfriend, Carol. This pointedly echoes the theme of Lord of the Flies (the one book King says he wishes he'd written): war is the human condition. Ted's mind-reading powers rub off a bit on Bobby, granting nightmare glimpses of his mom's assault by her rich, vile, jaunty boss. King packs plenty into 250 pages, using the same trick Bobby discerns in the film Village of the Damned: "The people seemed like real people, which made the make-believe parts scarier."

Vietnam is the otherworldly horror that haunts the remaining four stories. In the title tale, set in 1966, University of Maine college kids play the card game Hearts so obsessively they risk flunking out and getting drafted. The kids discover sex, rock, and politics, become war heroes and victims, and spend the '80s and '90s shell-shocked by change. The characters and stories are crisscrossed with connections that sometimes click and sometimes clunk. The most intense Hearts player, Ronnie Malenfant ("evil infant"), perpetrates a My Lai-like atrocity; a nice Harwich girl becomes a radical bomber. King's metaphor for lost '60s innocence is inspired by Donovan's "sweet and stupid" song about the sunken continent, and his stories hail the vanished Atlantis of his youth with deep sweetness and melancholy intelligence. --Tim Appelo

Amazon.com Audiobook Review

With his idiosyncratic blend of patrician airs and boyish charm, narrator William Hurt provides a wonderful complement to this wildly imaginative collection of short stories by author Stephen King. Hurt carefully weaves the disparate elements into a cohesive whole, embracing the subtle complexities of each character; one moment a wizened sadness leaks into his voice as a haunted old man, pursued by demons, asks his 11-year-old lookout, "You know everyone on this street, on this block of this street anyway? And you'd know strangers? Sojourners? Faces of those unknown?" Then, in a profound yet almost imperceptible switch, he exposes the boy's naive enthusiasm, "I think so." Right about here your neck hairs will stand at attention. Hurt's peculiar vocal style is in perfect pitch to King's dark, surreal vision of growing up amid the monsters of post-Vietnam America. (Running time: 21 hours, 16 cassettes) --George Laney

Book Description

Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war -- and the protests against it -- had flooded America's living rooms for a decade. Hearts in Atlantis, King's newest fiction, is composed of five interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.

In Part One, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield discovers a world of predatory malice in his own neighborhood. He also discovers that adults are sometimes not rescuers but at the heart of the terror.

In the title story, a bunch of college kids get hooked on a card game, discover the possibility of protest...and confront thier own collective heart of darkness, where laughter may be no more than the thinly disguised cry of the beast.

In "Blind Willie" and "Why We're in Vietnam," two men who grew up with Bobby in suburban Connecticut try to fill the emptiness of the post-Vietnam era in an America which sometimes seems as hollow -- and haunted -- as their own lives.

And in "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling," this remarkable audiobook's denouement. Booby returns to his hometown where one final secret, the hope of redemption, and his heart's desire may await him.

Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Stephen King's new audiobook will take some listeners to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave.

Download Description

By "Atlantis", King means the 1960s, that otherworldly decade which, like the fabled continent, has sunk into myth. Here, in five interconnected narratives that span from 1960 to 1999, King draws a stunning portrait of American life after the Vietnam War.

Customer Reviews:

Stick with the written version.......2007-08-14

I am on the last tape of the audio version of this book (16 grueling tapes in all). Half of the book is read by Stephen King (who is great) and the other half by William Hurt. Hurt has cut into my enjoyment of the book - his voice is arrogant (similar to his movie persona - think Altered States), he uses pauses where they don't belong (example: "the sense of the world as a (pause) thin (pause) veneer, (pause) stretched over something else"), lets words trail off, and in short - does not sound like the main character in the book at all!

In addition, there is a gross overuse of swear words in the last third of this book. They are tedious to listen to and subtract considerably from the story. I have found that later works of Stephen King tend to disintegrate into garbage about halfway through - but I continue to hope for redemption, since his earlier works were so stellar.

If you're going to get this, get the printed book and not the audio version!

Yawn.................2007-07-27

I just don't understand the hype about this one.
This book was a big yawn, and I realized this early on, but I continued reading all 700,000 pages (so it seemed), hoping for an eye opening ending. I never got it.
First off, maybe somebody needs to help me understand the need for splitting the book into two completely different stories? Stories that had no climax nor reason, and where the 1st 'story' had no ending!!
I would not recommend this to anybody who likes a page turner. Maybe you just truly have to be a King fan?

As Good as it gets.......2007-06-14

It really is a novel, not a collection. It is the best book King has ever written. Books rarely make me cry, but this one did. My all time favorite King book and my all time favorite work of fiction.

A story with heart.......2007-05-16

William Hurt does a phenomenal job with his sections of the story. He can capture the soul, joy and pain of all of his characters. He reads 3 of the 5 stories on the CD.

Stephen Kin reads the other 2 stories. I am not as interigued by the stories or the characters they focus on. Couple that with his flat, New England voice, and the middle section is not as enjoyable.

This is NOT a typical King story. There is a small amount of monster/supernatural element to it, but this is more about the human heart.

I really like this and actually bought the CD to replace my worn out cassette version. You may want to read excerpts from the story to decide if it is to your liking.

Read This Book.......2007-05-03

This book was great. Read it...that's all there is to say. It was great. It was the best...just read this and you wont regret it...if you do, however, then you're wrong and dumb. Ok I'm kidding, but read it. If you don't like it, let me know and I'll apologize.

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HEARTS IN ATLANTIS.
Stephen. King
Manufacturer: BCA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NRTWY0

Corazones En La Atlantida / Hearts in Atlantis

Average customer rating:

distinto
Es buena pero.......

Corazones En La Atlantida / Hearts in Atlantis
Stephen King
Manufacturer: Debolsillo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9871138504

Book Description

A lo largo de cinco relatos escalofriantes en tres temas principales- la década de los setenta, la guerra de Vietnam y el juego, Stephen King disecciona fantasmas, miedos y frustaciones de nuestra sociedad.

Customer Reviews:

distinto.......2002-03-04

Es un buen libro, pero no el mejor que he leido de Stephen King.
En este libro Stephen King cambia un poco el estilo de libros anteriores, pero aun así es un libro muy recomendable para los seguidores de él.

Es buena pero..............2001-08-02

En realidad es buena pero hay mejores libros de el ..... y aunque el comienzo es lenta es una buena historia, es refrescante el libro ya que no solo se centra en un solo tema sino que son varios, y le da al lector un agradable momento mientras lo lee........ pero no es mi favorita

THE MAGIC OF ATLANTIS: Mirrors of Tuzun Thune; Spawn of Dagon; Eye of Tandyla; Seal of Zaon Sathla; Vengeance of Ulios; Death of Malygris; Heart of Atlantean

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THE MAGIC OF ATLANTIS: Mirrors of Tuzun Thune; Spawn of Dagon; Eye of Tandyla; Seal of Zaon Sathla; Vengeance of Ulios; Death of Malygris; Heart of Atlantean

Manufacturer: Lancer Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GVXUJG

Average customer rating:

Uncanny parallel to his real life
Check it out...

Hearts in Atlantis

Manufacturer: Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0606286357

Customer Reviews:

Uncanny parallel to his real life.......2005-04-02

If you have read his book "On Writing" he has a small biography that parallels this book in nature. The story line and the details were intriguing. The only distraction from this was his constant potty mouth. He must have needed filler to flush (not flesh) out the book. I do not know if that is a recent phenomenon of they all are that way. The movies are not that way.

This is one story with a few rest spots that make some think it is a series of shorts. Do not attempt to read this out of order as each relies on knowledge of the former. The first phase, about the "Low Men", is the only real supernatural section. And as he points out it is the moral environment around the story that makes the supernatural scary. In this phase he also does a dissertation books including "The Lord of the Flies." There are real close corollaries to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" single mother, kid named Bobbie, and a mysterious border. The second phase Deals with a collage life environment, which is a background for molding character and characters. I do not want to tell too much detail, as that is why you read the book. The third phase is broken into two parts, one a story of Willie during and after Nam, then the whole set of previous characters surround by death and near death experiences.

The not so loose stories ingeniously ties together by a certain object that travels throughout the times to add as a catalyst and a conclusion.

Check it out..........2004-09-13

I put this book off for a long time. I kept looking at it on the shelf and thinking "Good God! Not another book about the 60's. Hippies? Viet Nam? 'Hey there Mr. Tambourine Man, gag a long-hair for me!'" I couldn't believe that King of all writers would pick such a worn-out subject.

Then finally I broke down and checked it out at the library (there was no way in hell I was going buy another book about the GD Viet Nam war). I went into it thinking I'd be bored to tears. Boy was I surprised. This whole novel was great, from beginning to end. Each story was engrossing for a different reason, and it was in no way saturated with the same old tired themes that I've come to expect from novels about that bygone era. Examples: Peace, love, drugs, the JFK assassination, Woodstock, etc. It was every bit the typical King horror novel, as well as a social commentary. I just wish the movie had been better, but what the hell? You can't have everything.

14 STEPHEN KING (+ pseudoynms) Books: Lisey's Story, Heart's in Atlantis, The Dark Half, Tommyknockers, Night Shift, Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, The Stand, Talisman, Regulators, Misery, Firestarter, Memory of Running, Journals of Eleanor Druse (Unboxed Set of Suspense Thriller Horror Books)

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14 STEPHEN KING (+ pseudoynms) Books: Lisey's Story, Heart's in Atlantis, The Dark Half, Tommyknockers, Night Shift, Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, The Stand, Talisman, Regulators, Misery, Firestarter, Memory of Running, Journals of Eleanor Druse (Unboxed Set of Suspense Thriller Horror Books)
Stephen King , Eleanor Druse , Ron McLarty , Richard Bachman , and Peter Straub
Manufacturer: various
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WICE54

Product Description

14 STEPHEN KING (+ pseudoynms) Books: Lisey's Story, Heart's in Atlantis, The Dark Half, Tommyknockers, Night Shift, Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, The Stand, Talisman, Regulators, Misery, Firestarter, Memory of Running, Journals of Eleanor Druse, (Unboxed Set of Suspense Thriller Books), in either Hard or Softcover, (See Seller Condition Comments), Shipped in one package to save on shipping costs.

Average customer rating:

The Heart of Atlantis: Kida Book Seven

Manufacturer: Disney
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0786846003

Average customer rating:

Meandering Plot, but addictive book

Hearts In Atlantis
Stephen King
Manufacturer: SCRIBNER
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OL2NMS

Customer Reviews:

Meandering Plot, but addictive book.......2007-07-21

The book jacket advertised it as Stephen King's take on counter-culture, the Vietnam War, and the 1960s. (King being a member of the Baby boomer generation himself).

It turns out the story isn't exactly as advertised, but it was still a great read nonetheless.

In his book "On Writing", among other things, Stephen King emphasized that the best books are not plotted out before hand. You just start writing the story and see where it goes. (Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, used to say the same thing: "The best stories are the ones you make up as you go along, because if I don't know what's going to happen next, how can the reader?")

There may be something to this, but all the same in my (albeit limited) experience with Stephen King, when I get to the end of one of his books I always think to myself: "you know, I could tell he made that up as he went along." There's always too many themes and plot lines that don't seem to go anywhere.

The same can be said about this book. It is not so much a single story as a collection of 5 stories with some overlapping characters. King makes an effort to emphasize some of the same themes throughout, but I highly suspect that these started out as 5 unrelated stories that he rewrote into one book.

That being said: It's a real page-turner. I don't remember the last time I was as hooked on a book as I was on this one: staying up late into the night to find out what was going to happen next, sneaking in little breaks at work to read a couple pages, et cetera.

The first half of this book takes place during the summer of 1960 when Eisenhower is still President. A mysterious stranger moves into the block, and he appears to come from another world. It probably more accurately belongs as one of King's "Dark Tower" series than a 1960s time piece. (I didn't get very far into the "Dark Tower" series, but I am familiar enough with the general concept to recognize the cross over).

This part doesn't fit exactly right with the rest of the book, but it is well written and suspenseful.

The next part is about a college experience in 1966. An entire boy's dormitory is in danger of flunking out of school because of an obsession with Hearts card game. At the same time the beginnings of consciousness about the Vietnam War.

At first I had a hard time believing a stupid card game could be addictive enough to cause everyone in the dorm to be in danger of flunking out. (I played Hearts a couple times in college, and never felt it was anything I wanted to give up my GPA or my social life for). And then I remembered all the people I knew from college who almost flunked because of on-line video games. So I guess in the days before video games, Hearts is as good a reason to flunk out of school as any.

Whether King accurately captures the atmosphere of the 60s is not for me (born in 1978) to say. However he does a good job of recreating the tension of a boy's dormitory. At times it reminded me of "A Separate Peace" or the beginning of "Catcher in the Rye". King never quite rises to this level, but at his best parts he gets close.

The last 3 chapters are in the 80s and 90s, and deal with the legacy of the Vietnam War.

The themes, like the plot lines in this book, are a bit too jumbled and numerous to come out too distinctly and be neatly summarized. King manages to touch on a variety of subjects, but doesn't linger on any of them: human nature and "Lord of the Flies", the potential of the Baby boomer generation and their failure to live up to it, the irony of the peace movement turning towards violence, the Mi Lai massacre and the horrors of Vietnam, the lives of the veterans after the war, et cetera.

It's almost a pity King wrote this book in 1999, because I'm sure the conflict in Iraq now, and the similarities to Vietnam, would allow him a whole other direction to go in. As it is however this book should just be taken as a pre Iraq War take on the legacy of Vietnam.

The book also showcases King at his usual macabre self. Even when not writing horror, King never seems to get away from his fascination with gore and death. Some of the Vietnam War scenes, with pilots getting their skin burned off, could easily have come out of a horror book instead. And yet at the same time, this book comes off as stronly anti-war.

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Hearts in Atlantis
Stephen King
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OISDU2

Book Description

Nine years ago, Samantha Marconi was swept away in a whirlwind wedding....even though she'd only known her new husband for a month. When Jeff left her just weeks after the wedding-she found out she was pregnant and had nowhere to turn. So Sam did the only thing she thought she could do. She placed her daughter up for adoption and tried to forget the past-until her past came knocking on her door....Jeff never received Sam's letters, nor did he know she had their child-until after the little girl was put up for adoption. Jeff managed to find their daughter, Emma, and lovingly raised her on his own. He's about to remarry-but his divorce from Sam never went through. Jeff needs Sam's help to get "unmarried," and quick. Yet when Jeff shows up on Sam's doorstep, he's shocked to find the sparks that once flew between them are still burning strong. Can he let Sam go again? Especially when the truth about what really happened nine years ago is finally revealed....

Customer Reviews:

Memorable and Original.......2007-07-01

I really enjoyed this book. It is a memorable read with an original premise. The author did a wonderful job of revealing layer by layer what happened in Sam and Jeff's past. I couldn't put this book down because I wanted to keep reading and discover how Sam and Jeff were going to come to trust each other again. I loved the ending of this book. Sam and Jeff's road to "happily ever after" was unique, cute, emotional and fun all in one. Definitely a keeper.

Amazing Contemporary Romance.......2007-05-14

I LOVED THIS BOOK! I'd been holding out reading the Marconi Sisters trilogy until all three books were released--now that they are, I picked up AND THEN CAME YOU yesterday and finished it today.

Samantha "Sam" Marconi is the middle child, the sensible one, the "good one." Not as take-charge as her older sister Jo, or as quick-tempered as her younger sister Mike, Sam is the one to stay in line. That was always true, until she married her first love, Jeff Hendricks, at the age of eighteen. That was nine years ago, but Sam hasn't forgotten a thing--falling in love, watching her young husband leave, getting pregnant, giving up the baby for adoption, coming home to face her divorce alone.

But then Jeff shows up, with a few surprises. They're not divorced. The daughter Sam gave up was raised by him. His mother plotted not only their divorce and the fact that Emma, their child, grew up with only one parent, but the truth that Sam has no idea that Jeff never wanted divorced all those years ago--that he does, in fact, think Sam divorced him.

AND THEN CAME YOU is a wonderful contemporary romance. Two great main characters who never truly got over their first loves, a daughter who wants only to see those around her happy, and a supporting cast that will totally delight you.

Mike's and Jo's stories will be next for me--the only thing I worry about is how I'll feel once this trilogy is over!

First Marconi story sets the framework for the great series.......2007-03-21

Samantha Marconi gets a surprise when her ex-husband is at her door announcing that they're still married. She and Jeff married as teens, and after he left for London, she was alone and pregnant and after not hearing from him other than receiving divorce papers, she gave their child up for adoption. Though she specified that it was to go to a couple, Jeff's mother made arrangements for Jeff to raise Emma, neither knowing the extent at which Jeff's mother connived to keep them apart. Jeff needs the divorce now because he plans to remarry. As Sam gets the opportunity to get to know her daughter, Jeff fears that she might try to take her away from him. She does hold up signing the papers in order to arrange a custody agreement. Neither count on their love for each other to continue nine years later, but lightening appears to strike twice. Will they be able to learn from the past and forge ahead?

Child's first in the Marconi series sets the tone for the books to follow, introducing the heroes that will eventually spar and capture her sisters' hearts, as well as the family patriarch who has joined forces with his three daughters in a construction firm. They are a raucous bunch, but nothing is more important to them than family, which made her reason for giving Emma up in the first place somewhat implausible. I did feel a little cheated that Jeff's mother died before she was taken to task for her machinations, but overall, considering the somewhat clichéd subject matter, Child's sense of family and attention to detail made it a great romantic story, with little Emma at the forefront (though perhaps a little too forgiving of the mother who abandoned her).

GREAT!!!.......2006-06-30

This book was awesome and it was cute. I loved all the characters and especially Jeff. This is a definite read and a great one.

Samantha is the middle Marconi daughter, the sensible one, yet she marries wealthy, impulsive, and sexy Jeff Hendricks during her first year of college over the loudly voiced objections of her family and his. Just a few months later, her marriage falls apart, and she returns home heartbroken, and pregnant. Stunned to discover nine years later that her divorce had never been finalized, and that Jeff had raised the child she gave up for adoption, she eagerly seizes the opportunity afforded by Jeff's intention to remarry in order to negotiate for joint custody of Emma. This engaging second-chance-at-love story displays Child's trademark tenderness toward children, her belief in the importance of family through good times and bad, and the sort of engagingly quirky supporting characters she portrays so well, all set in a familiar, warm, and comforting hometown atmosphere.

Implausible plot .......2005-08-12

I have read several of Maureen Child's books and enjoyed them a lot, but this one was not up to par. The story has three major problems. The first is the break up nine years ago that precipitated the divorce between Sam and Jeff. No reason was ever given for why Sam pushed Jeff out of their apartment in nothing but his boxers or why he took off for London without even telling Sam about it. It was all very nebulus and vague. No real conflict was ever mentioned as the why Sam and Jeff couldn't get along. As for the divorce, what modern woman would sign divorce papers without consulting an attorney and insisting on a settlement of some kind? The second problem concerns the adoption of Emma. And this was the big one that I just couldn't get around. I, too, find it unlikely that Sam would have put her daughter up for adoption with such a supportive family. But the real question is if the letter Sam sent to Jeff telling him she was pregnant was returned to her UNOPENED, how in the world did Jeff's mother find out about it? Sam didn't even tell her family about Emma until after the adoption was a done deal. And what incompetent or fraudulant attorney handled the so-called adoption and let Jeff's mother have Emma when Sam had specified that Emma was to go to a two parent family? Just how did Jeff's mother get her hands on Emma? Big hole in the plotline there. Also, I believe that a legal adoption requires that BOTH parents relinquish parental rights, not just the mother. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think Emma could have been put up for adoption without Jeff signing the papers, too. I thought the whole plot surrounding Emma's adoption was unbelievable. As for the third problem, there didn't seem to be any emotional closeness between Sam and Jeff. I felt it was all just flash and fire, no real feelings. Anyway, I forced myself to finish the book and am hoping that Mike's story will restore my faith in this author.

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And Then Came You: Sam's Story
Maureen Child
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NXTY7Y

Average customer rating:

And Then Came You : Sam's Story
Maureen Child
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTNYIC

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