First Comes Love

Marigold, Indiana #1

by Elizabeth Bevarly

Pssst... Tess is pregnant! And single! And...a virgin?

The news of her "pregnancy" hit Tess Monahan like a ton of wet diapers. Her denials were lost in a gust of gossip, and she wasn't about to announce to all of Marigold, Indiana, "I'm a 26-year-old virgin!"

Besides, her "bun in the oven" had awakened the protective instincts of Will Darrow...the man she'd been trying to get to notice her for as long as she could remember. Will's impulse was chivalrous but slipped into passion. And Tess would never halt his smoldering kisses. In fact, she was hoping their wild loving would put Will in the mind to marry and make some babies of his own with her!

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Harlequin, Contemporary

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 22, 2000

About the author

Elizabeth Bevarly was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky and earned her BA with honors in English from the University of Louisville in 1983. Although she can’t recall ever wanting to be anything but a novelist-oh, all right, she toyed briefly with becoming an archaeologist, until she realized how awful she looked in khaki and flannel, and there was a brief fling with the interior decorator thing, until she realized she had trouble distinguishing chintz from moiré, and… (Where was I? Oh, yeah. My brilliant career.) Anyway, her career side trips before making the leap to writing included stints working as a bartender, a waitress, a movie theater cashier, a soap-hawker for Crabtree & Evelyn, an apparel-hawker for The Limited, and a bridal registry consultant for a major department store. She also did time as an editorial assistant for a medical journal, where she learned the correct spellings and meanings of a variety of words (like microscopy and histological) which, with any luck at all, she will never use again in this life.

She wrote her first novel when she was twelve years old. It was 32 pages long-and that was with college rule notebook paper-and featured three girls named Liz, Marianne and Cheryl, who explored the mysteries of a haunted house. Her friends Marianne and Cheryl proclaimed it “Brilliant! Spellbinding! Kept me up past dinnertime reading!” Those rave reviews only kindled the fire inside her to write more.

Since sixth grade, Elizabeth has gone on to complete more than 60 works of contemporary romance. Her novels regularly appear on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists, and The Thing About Men was a New York Times Extended List bestseller. She’s been nominated for the prestigious RITA Award, has won the coveted National Readers’ Choice Award, and Romantic Times magazine has seen fit to honor her with two-count ‘em TWO-Career Achievement Awards. Her books have been translated into two dozen languages and published in three dozen countries, and there are more than ten million copies in print worldwide. She has claimed as residences Washington, DC, northern Virginia, southern New Jersey and Puerto Rico, but she now resides back in her native Kentucky with her husband and son and two very troubled cats where she fully intends to remain.

Reviews

[Carol Storm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first Elizabeth Bevarly romance, and while I really enjoyed the hero and the heroine and the small town setting, I just didn't think there was enough conflict to make the romance take flight!

Will and Tess have been the closest of friends since early childhood. They love each other, and everyone in town knows it. And everyone loves the two of them. So when a false rumor gets started that Tess is pregnant, Will just has to come to the rescue!

And . . . that's about it. Believe me, I liked these characters. But I was waiting for something gripping and dramatic to happen, and it never really did. I wanted to love this story, since I have really warm memories of Elizabeth Bevarly being incredibly gracious and outgoing in the golden age of Squawk Radio. I mean, I've never met a published romance author who wasn't gracious, but even in a gracious crowd she was always super friendly and super encouraging to newbies and fans. And not to be corny, but that niceness is really reflected in the kinds of stories she tells, at least judging from this sweet small town romance.

I just wanted something a little more dramatic, more angsty, with more tension and conflict and maybe even some suspense about whether or not the hero and heroine would get their happy ever after.

[Desi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leído en Junio 2014

Entretenida no más!!

[Coral · Rating 3 out of 5]

La noticia de su `embarazo` aturdió a Tess Monahan más que a nadie, pero no tenía ganas de explicarle a toda la ciudad que era una virgen de veintiséis años. Además, la situación despertó el instinto protector de Will Darrow, el hombre cuya atención había intentado llamar desde que era niña.
El impulso de Will era caballeroso... pero terminó por caer en la pasión. Y Tess no pensaba poner freno a sus besos incendiarios. De hecho, esperaba que su apasionado acto de amor hiciera que Will deseara casarse y tener hijos propios... con ella.





Me pareció un libro normalito, sencillo de leer, distraido, pero nada del otro mundo.

[Tia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was actually pretty hilarious to read. I've lived in a small nose in your business town. I did like this story but the whole fact was for me there was no outside or background really. It seemed a bit choppy and rushed.

[Colleen (NerdyWoman) Kayter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny book!

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern

[Saly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 3.5 stars