Shopping in a grocery store with a screaming four week old in her cart was not how Olivia Marks imaged spending her day. You would think that being an editor for self-help books would make her an expert at multitasking, but it seems that all that reading went right out her head.
Olivia is a career oriented woman who was never ready for the role that was forced on her, a role many women welcome, maybe even anticipate: that of becoming a parent. Her sister and her sister's husband died a car accident and they appointed Oliver as their daughter's guardian.
With this twist of fate, Oliver is now the mother of a four week old and must take time off her job in order to figure everything out. Filled with grief for losing her sister, Oliver can barely put one foot in front of the other let alone handle a baby and the baby's uncle.
An uncle who was an old boyfriend, whose smokey green eyes still stir emotions in her that has no business of ever stirring for him again, the same old boyfriend that is determined to take her niece away from her.
Brad Rushford is reeling from the loss of his brother who he helped raise when their parents died. At least he has a part of his brother in the form of his niece but even that was snatched away from him. His brother and his wife gave his niece to Olivia who works all the time and lives in the city.
He knows what is best for his niece and that is not for her to be taken away from most of her family and stuck with nannies to take care of her whilst Olivia goes off to work. He has a plan to make Olivia give up guardianship of his niece. He plans to do this by encouraging her doubts about raising a baby and he is not above using a little seduction to get what he wants.
Would Olivia fall for his tricks? Would the responsibility be too much to handle for Olivia? Would Brad actually go through with his plan? Find out in the first installment of the Mirror Lake Series, This Thing Called Love.
+Miranda Liasson wrote a lovely book about the struggles of becoming an unexpected parent. Olivia was so strong and confident and then she lost my respect at the end of the book. How dare she do what I never thought she would do in a million years.
Olivia was the sister that had a career in mind and went for it. Her sister, on the other hand, wanted to get married and become a mom. Olivia wanted that as well, once upon a time, but the love of her life gave up on her and that made Olivia's dream of a happy ever after die a heartbreaking death.
Her coping mechanism was to throw herself into her career. She invested so much of herself to her job that when she was at risk of losing it, she did not know what to do with herself. She allowed her job to define who she is and that can never be good.
Brad was a big old jerk. He has not seen nor heard from Olivia in many years and he immediately comes to the conclusion that she cannot take care of a child and that she would be cold and stand-offish with the baby.
You would think that he would want to have the baby for himself, but nooooooooooooo, he had his turn at fatherhood by raising his brothers, what he plans to do is make Olivia give up the baby and then dump the baby with his brother who already has three kids, without talking to them first I might add. Isn't he dreamy.
I could not warm up to Brad at all. He was mean, selfish and pig-headed in his ways and thinks that he is always right. He would kick a puppy when it is hurt, that may sound extreme, but that is what he did to Olivia and I can not forgive him for that, ever.
Yeah they fell in love and yeah they got together, (it would not be a love story if they did not) but I do not think that they should have ended up together.
The story was strong and since the book is about a baby, you would think that the baby would be mentioned more. From the description from the book, I gather that there was a baby and two people were fighting over her. It did not have any tender movement with the baby.
The relationship between Olivia and her niece would have been more believable it had scenes where Olivia was stressing out on what to do and by trial and error figure out how to fix the problem. I could not connect with the baby since I felt as if she was just put in the book as a reason for Olivia and Brad to have a conflict of interest.
Another thing that displeased me in the book was the constant repetition and back and forth of their thoughts. Olivia and Brad would realize that they still have feeling for each other and then all of a sudden, then they don't; then to just realize again that they have feelings for each other. It got really confusing for me with their acceptance and then denial of their feelings.
The book was interesting to read and I enjoyed it, but the book was missing many key ingredients to make it amazing. It was missing a connection with the baby, justification for Brad's poor opinion of Olivia and more grief for their dceased siblings.
I mean their would be one sentance of how they miss their sibling and that was it and they would seem totally cool with life. That did not sit well with me. I wonder if the second book in the series would make me connect with the characters more? I guess I have to wait and find out.
HAPPY READING!
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Amazon: http://amzn.to/1L7ihDi
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