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The Husband Hunters #3
Contract Baby
The late Nancy Leeward has left each of her three god-daughters a share of her estate. Polly Johnson, who, because her mother needed an expensive operation, became a surrogate mother. Now she's found out her baby's father is Raul Zaforteza. Raul will do anything to keep his unborn child - but will Polly give in to his desire?
288 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1999
About the author
Lynne Graham
1,852 books1,464 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Lynne Graham was born on July 30, 1956 of Irish-Scottish parentage. She has livedin Northern Ireland all her life. She grew up in a seaside village with her brother. She learnt to read at the age of 3, and haven't stopped since then.
Lynne first met her husband when she was 14. At 15, she wrote her first book, but it was rejected everywhere. Lynne married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. She started writing again when she was at home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book in 1987 and the delight of seeing that first book for sale in the local newsagents has never been forgotten. Now, there are over 10 million of her books in print worldwide.
Lynne always wanted a large family and has five children. Her eldest and her only natural child is 19 and currently at university. Her other four children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted. She has two 9-year-olds adopted from Sri Lanka and a 5- and a 3-year-old adopted from Guatemala.
In Lynne's home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life. The family lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.
The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright white West Highland terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.
Lynne loves gardening, cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.
Lynne Graham was born on July 30, 1956 of Irish-Scottish parentage. She has livedin Northern Ireland all her life. She grew up in a seaside village with her brother. She learnt to read at the age of 3, and haven't stopped since then.
Lynne first met her husband when she was 14. At 15, she wrote her first book, but it was rejected everywhere. Lynne married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. She started writing again when she was at home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book in 1987 and the delight of seeing that first book for sale in the local newsagents has never been forgotten. Now, there are over 10 million of her books in print worldwide.
Lynne always wanted a large family and has five children. Her eldest and her only natural child is 19 and currently at university. Her other four children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted. She has two 9-year-olds adopted from Sri Lanka and a 5- and a 3-year-old adopted from Guatemala.
In Lynne's home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life. The family lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.
The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright white West Highland terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.
Lynne loves gardening, cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
April 14, 2019
Re Contract Baby - Lynne Graham finishes off her Husband Hunters trilogy with a surrogate mother/forced MOC book.
The h in this one is an extremely naive and conservatively raised unicorn groomer. The H is the Latin Lady Lover Extraordinaire who wants an heir, but is too busy sampling the lady buffet to settle with one woman.
When the h's mother becomes seriously ill and the h needs money for a Bronze Standard Livesaving HP Operation, the h agrees to be a surrogate for who she thinks is a married couple who desperately want a child.
Then she winds up staying in Vermont for most of her pregnancy after her mother's operation did not work and she died - (hence the Bronze Standard designation, HP Gold Standard is only awarded when the patient lives.)
While the h is in Vermont, she meets a very handsome and dashing Latin American and falls madly in love - then she finds out that the dashing Latin American is the single father of her unborn child and the h is devastated and betrayed.
She isn't giving her beloved baby up to some lady lurving buffet sampling playboy. The h heads home for England and learns about her million dollar inheritance that is only available if she marries.
The H tracks her down of course and the H and h bicker over the fate of the baby. The h is in England and because British law won't enforce a surrogacy contract, the H is forced to marry her. This doesn't stop him from parading a string of blonde bombshells in front of the h, nor does it prevent him from threatening bodily harm to the h if she betrays him with another man.
The H's on/off pursuit of the h becomes a bit tedious by the end and the h's main reaction is to have a fit and then cave in. The H and h have a son and huge bursts of Patented LG Tummy Melting Purple Passion. But when we finally get to the H's Valenzuelan Hacienda, the green eyed demons run rampant.
The H is jealous of his stable manager, who offers to teach the h to ride. The h is jealous of the H's neighbor, who heavily implies that she and the H are involved in a big romance and the h is only there because she is the mother of the H's heir.
The h vacillates between disbelief and despair, her love for the H has never died and we learn that the H was actually the product of an affair between his landowning father and his neighboring tenant worker mother.
The H's childhood was fraught with difficulties as his mother was reviled for being a tart and possession of the H was something his parents fought over, as his father made the H and his mother live on the same land that also housed his heiress wife. It was a very drama ridden and angry love triangle and the H's mother died while drinking and drowning when he was nine.
This has made the H very gun shy about marriage and getting seriously involved with any woman, which is why he keeps pulling and then pushing the h away. But the h does her best to be a supportive wife and establish a sense of family by reuniting the H and his maternal grandfather under the guise of building a family for their son.
It all comes to a blow up point at the H's big annual fiesta/polo match celebration. The H has actually told the h he loves her at this point, but the h thinks it is just an exaggeration after being reunited with his grandfather.
The Blonde OW Neighbor shows up to make her insidious play and the h decides that she should probably sort out the OW's status with the H.
(The H had previously lambasted the h for letting her jealousy show when OW approached him, so the h has been an internal ball of misery for several chapters, because from her POV, she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't and what is a sweet LG doormat supposed to do?)
To both the h's and the reader's surprise, the H is all ready to kick the OW to the curb. He did have a brief fling with the older lady when he was 19, but she was grasping and greedy and soon married a wealthier man than the H was at the time.
Now the OW has lost her money and the H felt a little nostalgic and sorry for her, so he leased her a home and offered to pay her to be his social hostess when he was around, but he has not been sleeping with her and he doesn't really like her as a person at all.
The H does a brilliant OW dismissal and kicks her out of the big fiesta, right there in front of the reader and the h. With the exposure of the OW's lies, the H and h are finally able to avow their true love for each other and the h is now reassured that she and the H have a love that will last.
LG finishes off with the H buying the h's godmother's old estate in England, he figures he and the h can live there when they visit. We get a little reunion with all three of the h's from the series.
All of them are loved up, baby blessed and happy, they are all also once again the very best of friends for another pink sparkly unicorn dancing LG HP outing.
The h in this one is an extremely naive and conservatively raised unicorn groomer. The H is the Latin Lady Lover Extraordinaire who wants an heir, but is too busy sampling the lady buffet to settle with one woman.
When the h's mother becomes seriously ill and the h needs money for a Bronze Standard Livesaving HP Operation, the h agrees to be a surrogate for who she thinks is a married couple who desperately want a child.
Then she winds up staying in Vermont for most of her pregnancy after her mother's operation did not work and she died - (hence the Bronze Standard designation, HP Gold Standard is only awarded when the patient lives.)
While the h is in Vermont, she meets a very handsome and dashing Latin American and falls madly in love - then she finds out that the dashing Latin American is the single father of her unborn child and the h is devastated and betrayed.
She isn't giving her beloved baby up to some lady lurving buffet sampling playboy. The h heads home for England and learns about her million dollar inheritance that is only available if she marries.
The H tracks her down of course and the H and h bicker over the fate of the baby. The h is in England and because British law won't enforce a surrogacy contract, the H is forced to marry her. This doesn't stop him from parading a string of blonde bombshells in front of the h, nor does it prevent him from threatening bodily harm to the h if she betrays him with another man.
The H's on/off pursuit of the h becomes a bit tedious by the end and the h's main reaction is to have a fit and then cave in. The H and h have a son and huge bursts of Patented LG Tummy Melting Purple Passion. But when we finally get to the H's Valenzuelan Hacienda, the green eyed demons run rampant.
The H is jealous of his stable manager, who offers to teach the h to ride. The h is jealous of the H's neighbor, who heavily implies that she and the H are involved in a big romance and the h is only there because she is the mother of the H's heir.
The h vacillates between disbelief and despair, her love for the H has never died and we learn that the H was actually the product of an affair between his landowning father and his neighboring tenant worker mother.
The H's childhood was fraught with difficulties as his mother was reviled for being a tart and possession of the H was something his parents fought over, as his father made the H and his mother live on the same land that also housed his heiress wife. It was a very drama ridden and angry love triangle and the H's mother died while drinking and drowning when he was nine.
This has made the H very gun shy about marriage and getting seriously involved with any woman, which is why he keeps pulling and then pushing the h away. But the h does her best to be a supportive wife and establish a sense of family by reuniting the H and his maternal grandfather under the guise of building a family for their son.
It all comes to a blow up point at the H's big annual fiesta/polo match celebration. The H has actually told the h he loves her at this point, but the h thinks it is just an exaggeration after being reunited with his grandfather.
The Blonde OW Neighbor shows up to make her insidious play and the h decides that she should probably sort out the OW's status with the H.
(The H had previously lambasted the h for letting her jealousy show when OW approached him, so the h has been an internal ball of misery for several chapters, because from her POV, she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't and what is a sweet LG doormat supposed to do?)
To both the h's and the reader's surprise, the H is all ready to kick the OW to the curb. He did have a brief fling with the older lady when he was 19, but she was grasping and greedy and soon married a wealthier man than the H was at the time.
Now the OW has lost her money and the H felt a little nostalgic and sorry for her, so he leased her a home and offered to pay her to be his social hostess when he was around, but he has not been sleeping with her and he doesn't really like her as a person at all.
The H does a brilliant OW dismissal and kicks her out of the big fiesta, right there in front of the reader and the h. With the exposure of the OW's lies, the H and h are finally able to avow their true love for each other and the h is now reassured that she and the H have a love that will last.
LG finishes off with the H buying the h's godmother's old estate in England, he figures he and the h can live there when they visit. We get a little reunion with all three of the h's from the series.
All of them are loved up, baby blessed and happy, they are all also once again the very best of friends for another pink sparkly unicorn dancing LG HP outing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 19, 2012
This one was hard to get through and I might not have made it had I been in a different mood and had I not been trying to read this series. The hero was a hideous asshat. He humiliated the heroine over and over again. I guess he was an angry boner man which useful term I learned from my GR friend willaful. Boy was he ever pissed he wanted her. The heroine was sweet and super naive.
The story was interesting and the conflict well developed and it made sense. If you can get past (or maybe you're in the mood for) the spectacular asshattedness of the hero this might be the book for you. I guess the four stars are because it was a pretty spectacular train wreck to watch.
The story was interesting and the conflict well developed and it made sense. If you can get past (or maybe you're in the mood for) the spectacular asshattedness of the hero this might be the book for you. I guess the four stars are because it was a pretty spectacular train wreck to watch.
December 20, 2018
Three girls inherit a share of their godmother's estate—if they marry within a year and remain married for six months.
Soon they will realize that what they have inherit is basically “good luck".
All of them will be married under different circumstances and will stay happily married for the rest of their lives.
The third girl is Polly. Sweet and innocent Polly decides to become a surrogate mother for a couple that she presumed they could not have kids. Her surprise is great when she realises that there is not any unlucky married couple, but a single Venezuelan arrogant man, Raul, who does not want to get married ever. He only wanted a kid.
When Raul explains to heavily pregnant Polly that he will just have his kid and leave for Venezuela, Polly runs away.
“I am not prepared to go to Venezuela as anything other than a wife!”
So, Raul decides to find her and marry her and take her and his kid back home. But will he ever forgive her for forcing him to marry her? Hmmmm
Soon they will realize that what they have inherit is basically “good luck".
All of them will be married under different circumstances and will stay happily married for the rest of their lives.
The third girl is Polly. Sweet and innocent Polly decides to become a surrogate mother for a couple that she presumed they could not have kids. Her surprise is great when she realises that there is not any unlucky married couple, but a single Venezuelan arrogant man, Raul, who does not want to get married ever. He only wanted a kid.
When Raul explains to heavily pregnant Polly that he will just have his kid and leave for Venezuela, Polly runs away.
“I am not prepared to go to Venezuela as anything other than a wife!”
So, Raul decides to find her and marry her and take her and his kid back home. But will he ever forgive her for forcing him to marry her? Hmmmm
February 26, 2017
Cute ending of the Husband Hunters series. This heroine was on the TSL end of the spectrum, however. She became a surrogate mother in New York, reneged on the contract after falling in love with the hero in Vermont(who was the father). Knowing she'd never give up her baby, she fled to England. After having the baby in London, she made a fuss about a marriage of convenience, and was jealous of the stewardess on their flight to Venezuela.
Come to think about it, maybe she wasn't TSL- she was jet-lagged. Yes, this is one of the stories where the change in scenery will give you whiplash - as will the change in the volatile hero's moods.
He's cold. Then he's approachable. He walks out - he walks back. I liked him more as the story progressed. His backstory (his mother was his father's mistress and they lived in a separate house on the ranch) was interesting and explained his skittishness. I did like how he confronted the OW for her mischief making and threw her off the ranch and withdrew his financial support. Finally - justice done!
A solid entry in a very entertaining series of three stories. I recommend all of them.
Come to think about it, maybe she wasn't TSL- she was jet-lagged. Yes, this is one of the stories where the change in scenery will give you whiplash - as will the change in the volatile hero's moods.
He's cold. Then he's approachable. He walks out - he walks back. I liked him more as the story progressed. His backstory (his mother was his father's mistress and they lived in a separate house on the ranch) was interesting and explained his skittishness. I did like how he confronted the OW for her mischief making and threw her off the ranch and withdrew his financial support. Finally - justice done!
A solid entry in a very entertaining series of three stories. I recommend all of them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2018
"Contract Baby" is the "WONDERFUL(ly shitty)" story of Raul and Polly.
Let's summarize this brain numbing saga:
-Raul, our hero the handsome playboy who dips his dick into anything blonde but wants no commitment
-Hires a woman after screening her anonymously to be a surrogate because
a)Good genes YOLO
b)No uggos needed
c)He doesn't want to put no ring on it
-The h Polly accepts to provide her sick mother with better care
-The H then enters her life, not telling her the truth, making her fall for him all the while "Treating her like a sister" (to whom he later confesses was attracted..um WHAT)
-The h finds out and runs away (running away #1, followed by many more)
-The hero is a trillionaire with spies and PI's everywhere and finds her
and thus begins a saga of two destructive individuals constantly being an asshole to one another.
OUR HERO RAUL
So SO HOT that every female in his vicinity has to wear panty liners, this ideal man sleeps with every blonde in sight EVEN when the heroine is almost nearing the end of her pregnancy. He verbally abuses and berates her, body shames her, uses her attraction and lack of hoeing against her, blackmails and threatens her and all the while wants to bang her pussy- but god forbid, she looks anywhere else- he will chop her up and feed her to a jaguar (actual quote in the book).
His OW threaten the heroine too, and he never, ever promises fidelity.
Yes, there is the expected tragic sob story about his past- but how is that ALWAYS an excuse for the heroine to be a gaping, fissure filled ahole? I mean, shouldn't that make him a better person?!
OUR HEROINE POLLY
Big WUSS. No backbone but easily throws around tantrums. Doing and speaking before thinking is her motto. Miss hymenated preggo has been raised by a puritan family, so legit loses her control over her horniness EVERY time the hero even looks at her.
It made me SO MAD that she felt sorry and regretful after every fight and whined about it, even though it was half the hero's fault for pressuring hero.
Their relationship can be described in one word: TOXIC
Some eyeroll quotes/scenes from the book:
Raul emerged from the clinic. The blonde threw herself exuberantly into his arms Polly’s nerveless fingers dropped from the curtain.
That was sarcasm, not humour, Digby. My little bride is much smarter than the average gold-digger,’ Raul breathed with stinging bitterness. ‘She used my son as a bargaining chip to blackmail me into marriage!’
‘But whatever happens now I will keep my son,’ Raul completed with harsh conviction.
‘But if we share a bed, Raul...I expect you to be faithful.’
The silence thickened and lay heavily.
‘No woman tells me what to do,’ Raul countered with ferocious bite. ‘And that includes you!’
‘I’d break you into little pieces for the jaguar to feed on before I would let any other man near you!’
‘You have the backbone of a jellyfish! I’m ashamed to be married to such a spiritless excuse for a woman!’
Embarrassingly sexual butterflies erupted in her tummy as she watched him lithely straighten from his elegant lounging position against the rail.
The resolution and last 3/4th was unsatisfying, and left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I need the last hour of my memory bleached off.
Unsafe
1/5
Let's summarize this brain numbing saga:
-Raul, our hero the handsome playboy who dips his dick into anything blonde but wants no commitment
-Hires a woman after screening her anonymously to be a surrogate because
a)Good genes YOLO
b)No uggos needed
c)He doesn't want to put no ring on it
-The h Polly accepts to provide her sick mother with better care
-The H then enters her life, not telling her the truth, making her fall for him all the while "Treating her like a sister" (to whom he later confesses was attracted..um WHAT)
-The h finds out and runs away (running away #1, followed by many more)
-The hero is a trillionaire with spies and PI's everywhere and finds her
and thus begins a saga of two destructive individuals constantly being an asshole to one another.
OUR HERO RAUL
So SO HOT that every female in his vicinity has to wear panty liners, this ideal man sleeps with every blonde in sight EVEN when the heroine is almost nearing the end of her pregnancy. He verbally abuses and berates her, body shames her, uses her attraction and lack of hoeing against her, blackmails and threatens her and all the while wants to bang her pussy- but god forbid, she looks anywhere else- he will chop her up and feed her to a jaguar (actual quote in the book).
His OW threaten the heroine too, and he never, ever promises fidelity.
Yes, there is the expected tragic sob story about his past- but how is that ALWAYS an excuse for the heroine to be a gaping, fissure filled ahole? I mean, shouldn't that make him a better person?!
OUR HEROINE POLLY
Big WUSS. No backbone but easily throws around tantrums. Doing and speaking before thinking is her motto. Miss hymenated preggo has been raised by a puritan family, so legit loses her control over her horniness EVERY time the hero even looks at her.
It made me SO MAD that she felt sorry and regretful after every fight and whined about it, even though it was half the hero's fault for pressuring hero.
Their relationship can be described in one word: TOXIC
Some eyeroll quotes/scenes from the book:
Raul emerged from the clinic. The blonde threw herself exuberantly into his arms Polly’s nerveless fingers dropped from the curtain.
That was sarcasm, not humour, Digby. My little bride is much smarter than the average gold-digger,’ Raul breathed with stinging bitterness. ‘She used my son as a bargaining chip to blackmail me into marriage!’
‘But whatever happens now I will keep my son,’ Raul completed with harsh conviction.
‘But if we share a bed, Raul...I expect you to be faithful.’
The silence thickened and lay heavily.
‘No woman tells me what to do,’ Raul countered with ferocious bite. ‘And that includes you!’
‘I’d break you into little pieces for the jaguar to feed on before I would let any other man near you!’
‘You have the backbone of a jellyfish! I’m ashamed to be married to such a spiritless excuse for a woman!’
Embarrassingly sexual butterflies erupted in her tummy as she watched him lithely straighten from his elegant lounging position against the rail.
The resolution and last 3/4th was unsatisfying, and left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I need the last hour of my memory bleached off.
Unsafe
1/5
April 4, 2023
For me this was a slow start. I didn’t warm up to the story until the last half. We finally got some much needed drama. I was glad I stuck it out to see him go all jealous/possessive and take out his own garbage. As usual, I was annoyed with LG heaping blame and guilt on the h. The hero was obviously the one in the wrong the entire time and it irritates me when LG makes the h believe she’s at fault for HIS asinine behavior. It feels like gaslighting. 😑
November 17, 2014
This is perhaps the most over the top, convoluted plot with a batshit crazy jealous alphabrute hero, a naive and "ends up having a virgin birth" heroine in a surrogacy gone wrong taking place on 3 continents - the US for its crippling health care system, the UK for its surrogacy laws and of course the Venezuelan stud farm as exotic setting.
I love this book muchly. It is funny, melodramatic and makes me shout at inanimate objects. As a reader, I put a lot of value on a book that can make me shout at the pages, shout at the ridiculous ideas expressed in the book yet stay with the book and read it all the way through because, somehow, the author writes a story that carries you along on the sea of crazy and hope that the outcome is not what you think it will be. I adore Lynne Graham. She is genius.
I love this book muchly. It is funny, melodramatic and makes me shout at inanimate objects. As a reader, I put a lot of value on a book that can make me shout at the pages, shout at the ridiculous ideas expressed in the book yet stay with the book and read it all the way through because, somehow, the author writes a story that carries you along on the sea of crazy and hope that the outcome is not what you think it will be. I adore Lynne Graham. She is genius.
June 7, 2017
Gah! What is wrong with me?! Polly was very much like a doormat for a good portion of the book, and pretty much let Raul override her every desire - seriously! The guy buys her a new wardrobe without consulting her, tells her that they're going to A, B and C and expects her to jump. It's one thing to be utterly in love with someone, and another to willingly do everything someone tells you without any question!
And RAUL! Good grief! If I thought she was waspish, he was nasty and awful to her. The stuff he pulled out about her made my head swim.
And yet? I really liked the book. Stupid, but I really, really enjoyed the ride. I loved (and hated in equal parts) how utterly weak and forgiving Polly was, when it came to Raul. And I loved how Raul slowly came to terms with his feelings for her, taking it beyond just showering her in gifts. The OW just annoyed me no end, but I did like that she got her comeuppance, and mostly because she pretty dug her own grave. I have to credit Raul for being smart enough to at least spot that, but both H and h were pretty stupid in their own way when in each other's company.
And RAUL! Good grief! If I thought she was waspish, he was nasty and awful to her. The stuff he pulled out about her made my head swim.
And yet? I really liked the book. Stupid, but I really, really enjoyed the ride. I loved (and hated in equal parts) how utterly weak and forgiving Polly was, when it came to Raul. And I loved how Raul slowly came to terms with his feelings for her, taking it beyond just showering her in gifts. The OW just annoyed me no end, but I did like that she got her comeuppance, and mostly because she pretty dug her own grave. I have to credit Raul for being smart enough to at least spot that, but both H and h were pretty stupid in their own way when in each other's company.
November 20, 2014
I actually didn't have the same issues with this book that other reviewers had.
Sure Polly was a surrogate but .. I'd have backed out too.
However, I didn't rate this higher because I did find Polly annoying.. Too childish and whiny. And overall it was kinda boring..
*shrug*
Sure Polly was a surrogate but .. I'd have backed out too.
However, I didn't rate this higher because I did find Polly annoying.. Too childish and whiny. And overall it was kinda boring..
*shrug*
August 4, 2022
This is the last of the husband hunters series. I enjoyed it, however, I have to agree out of the 3 in the series this was probably the weakest. For me it was a solid 3.5 rounded up to 4 because the evil ow actually gets confronted by the hero and tossed out on her rear.
Polly, our heroine, is a 21 year old virgin who is at the end of her pregnancy. She agreed to be a surrogate for cash, so she could pay for a life saving operation for her mom, which sadly did not save her mom’s life. She has a whole sad backstory that I won’t go into, but ended up being sweet while retaining a spine! Now, Polly should have never agreed to be a surrogate, because she is hardly the type to give up a child. She ends up running and hiding out from the hero for several months of her pregnancy. My first thought was, “Hey, you took money and it is only fair that you provide what you promised.” Then we find out that part of the reason she fled was because she was duped.
Ok so she is on the run. She is angry. The hero is angry because she has his child and has disappeared. Both have valid reasons to be so. Of course the h is extra mad, because the hero got to know her for a few months in Vermont but never disclosed that he was purchaser of the baby. So he is guilty of that duping. Plus, the h fell in love with him, and although he didn’t seduce her, or pretend to be her boyfriend he knew that she was falling in love with him. She tells him on a regular basis she hates him. But I heard: “I love you, but you hurt me and at some point you may break me.” It was all a protective stance.
Hero finds h. Gets her to a private clinic so she can become healthy. She doesn’t trust him and is worried that he will find someway to kidnap her or the baby when it is born. They go back and forth about their situation. She tells him the only way she will end up in Venezuela is as his wife, basically knowing the commitment phobe H would rather die than resort to marriage. She tells the H off and honestly it is for all those heroines before her that took it lying down.
.
“You are a playboy with a reputation as a womaniser. You enjoy your freedom, don’t you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Raul was unmoved by that angle of
attack. ‘I don’t lie to the women who pass through my life. I don’t promise true love or permanency—’
‘Because you’ve never had to, have you? You know, listening to you, Raul...I despise my own sex. But I despise you most of all,’ Polly confessed, with hands knotting into furious fists by her side. ‘It’s one rule for you and another for me—a hypocritical sexist double standard the belongs in the Prehistoric ages with Neanderthals like you! You say you want this child, but you didn’t want a child badly enough to make a commitment like other men, did you? And what do you offer me—?”.
However, within 24 hours he changes his tune and offers marriage to the shocked h. She hesitates, but ultimately she loves the H. She wants their child to have 2 parents. She hopes that she will be able to bring the H over to her way of thinking about love. They marry. She goes into labor. Has a Caesarian as she is tiny and the baby is 10 pounds. The H becomes a little distant. She overhears him talking to the lawyer about being blackmailed into marriage. She calls Maxie from Married to a Mistressand asks for help to disappear for a bit. So the hero misses the first month of his son’s life but eventually finds the h and takes her to Venezuela.
Of course Venezuela has is ups and downs eventually leading to the HEA and a telling off of the ow wannabe.
The hero messes up a lot. He is cruel(insults her dressing style, says he is embarrassed by her in different ways etc….) He accuses her of being jealous and possessive although he has done a lot to give her those mistrust issues(plus he goes berserk when she has a conversation with a possible om). Of course all of this is because he loves her and doesn’t want to. One of my favorite passages is from the h , when she basically tells him he needs to figure out this marriage thing quick or she will be gone in 5 months(that is when she is due to inherit money per the husband hunters series). It comes about after he deflowers her and does the whole sex then retreat thing.
‘No, I won’t. I’m past caring,’ Polly muttered with perfect truth. ‘I love you to death, and you probably knew it before I did! If you’d had a single shred of decency you would’ve backed off in Vermont. In the same way you knew exactly why I wanted to marry you...yet you told Digby I was a gold-digger and a blackmailer. It’s like a big black secret you won’t acknowledge, but I won’t live a lie, Raul.’
Utterly drained by that stark baring of her own tormented emotions, Polly slid out of the bed and walked towards the door.
‘Dios...I can’t give you love!’ Raul launched at her with positive savagery.
‘But with a little effort you could make a reasonable stab at respect, if not anything else. Because if you don’t,’ Polly whispered jaggedly, torn in two with pain and the regret he had so accurately forecast she would feel, ‘I’ll stop loving you, and love is all you have to hold me. I won’t be a doormat...I won’t be walked on.’
Without looking back, she flipped the door shut behind her.”..
Now our h isn’t without her own faults and the H points out things that she should have done differently as well. Both of them actually grow throughout their marriage. They start to communicate and both of them have been guilty of running in the past. There are lots of good times between them, both funny and romantic. And although our H could be cruel, he also showed his caring throughout the story. He really ramps it up near the end. Plus, he doesn’t let the ow wannabe get away with her manipulative, deceitful machinations. In fact he takes the h firmly in hand and sets the ow up to be confronted by him and the h as a united front. Way too many times I have read a story and the evil ow wannabe gets to ride off in the sunset and torture some other unsuspecting h’s romance.
The story ends with lots of things being cleared up. He surprises her with a trip to London and a home for when they are there. Inside the home waits the h’s and their husbands from the previous stories. It was a nice ending to the series.
I will admit that there were times with this story where I was like, “Less thinky thinks” and more action. I was also surprised the H didn’t have the h under surveillance as she was quite the escape artist. I mean she had no money but had the right connections I guess.
Polly, our heroine, is a 21 year old virgin who is at the end of her pregnancy. She agreed to be a surrogate for cash, so she could pay for a life saving operation for her mom, which sadly did not save her mom’s life. She has a whole sad backstory that I won’t go into, but ended up being sweet while retaining a spine! Now, Polly should have never agreed to be a surrogate, because she is hardly the type to give up a child. She ends up running and hiding out from the hero for several months of her pregnancy. My first thought was, “Hey, you took money and it is only fair that you provide what you promised.” Then we find out that part of the reason she fled was because she was duped.
Ok so she is on the run. She is angry. The hero is angry because she has his child and has disappeared. Both have valid reasons to be so. Of course the h is extra mad, because the hero got to know her for a few months in Vermont but never disclosed that he was purchaser of the baby. So he is guilty of that duping. Plus, the h fell in love with him, and although he didn’t seduce her, or pretend to be her boyfriend he knew that she was falling in love with him. She tells him on a regular basis she hates him. But I heard: “I love you, but you hurt me and at some point you may break me.” It was all a protective stance.
Hero finds h. Gets her to a private clinic so she can become healthy. She doesn’t trust him and is worried that he will find someway to kidnap her or the baby when it is born. They go back and forth about their situation. She tells him the only way she will end up in Venezuela is as his wife, basically knowing the commitment phobe H would rather die than resort to marriage. She tells the H off and honestly it is for all those heroines before her that took it lying down.
.
“You are a playboy with a reputation as a womaniser. You enjoy your freedom, don’t you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Raul was unmoved by that angle of
attack. ‘I don’t lie to the women who pass through my life. I don’t promise true love or permanency—’
‘Because you’ve never had to, have you? You know, listening to you, Raul...I despise my own sex. But I despise you most of all,’ Polly confessed, with hands knotting into furious fists by her side. ‘It’s one rule for you and another for me—a hypocritical sexist double standard the belongs in the Prehistoric ages with Neanderthals like you! You say you want this child, but you didn’t want a child badly enough to make a commitment like other men, did you? And what do you offer me—?”.
However, within 24 hours he changes his tune and offers marriage to the shocked h. She hesitates, but ultimately she loves the H. She wants their child to have 2 parents. She hopes that she will be able to bring the H over to her way of thinking about love. They marry. She goes into labor. Has a Caesarian as she is tiny and the baby is 10 pounds. The H becomes a little distant. She overhears him talking to the lawyer about being blackmailed into marriage. She calls Maxie from Married to a Mistressand asks for help to disappear for a bit. So the hero misses the first month of his son’s life but eventually finds the h and takes her to Venezuela.
Of course Venezuela has is ups and downs eventually leading to the HEA and a telling off of the ow wannabe.
The hero messes up a lot. He is cruel(insults her dressing style, says he is embarrassed by her in different ways etc….) He accuses her of being jealous and possessive although he has done a lot to give her those mistrust issues(plus he goes berserk when she has a conversation with a possible om). Of course all of this is because he loves her and doesn’t want to. One of my favorite passages is from the h , when she basically tells him he needs to figure out this marriage thing quick or she will be gone in 5 months(that is when she is due to inherit money per the husband hunters series). It comes about after he deflowers her and does the whole sex then retreat thing.
‘No, I won’t. I’m past caring,’ Polly muttered with perfect truth. ‘I love you to death, and you probably knew it before I did! If you’d had a single shred of decency you would’ve backed off in Vermont. In the same way you knew exactly why I wanted to marry you...yet you told Digby I was a gold-digger and a blackmailer. It’s like a big black secret you won’t acknowledge, but I won’t live a lie, Raul.’
Utterly drained by that stark baring of her own tormented emotions, Polly slid out of the bed and walked towards the door.
‘Dios...I can’t give you love!’ Raul launched at her with positive savagery.
‘But with a little effort you could make a reasonable stab at respect, if not anything else. Because if you don’t,’ Polly whispered jaggedly, torn in two with pain and the regret he had so accurately forecast she would feel, ‘I’ll stop loving you, and love is all you have to hold me. I won’t be a doormat...I won’t be walked on.’
Without looking back, she flipped the door shut behind her.”..
Now our h isn’t without her own faults and the H points out things that she should have done differently as well. Both of them actually grow throughout their marriage. They start to communicate and both of them have been guilty of running in the past. There are lots of good times between them, both funny and romantic. And although our H could be cruel, he also showed his caring throughout the story. He really ramps it up near the end. Plus, he doesn’t let the ow wannabe get away with her manipulative, deceitful machinations. In fact he takes the h firmly in hand and sets the ow up to be confronted by him and the h as a united front. Way too many times I have read a story and the evil ow wannabe gets to ride off in the sunset and torture some other unsuspecting h’s romance.
The story ends with lots of things being cleared up. He surprises her with a trip to London and a home for when they are there. Inside the home waits the h’s and their husbands from the previous stories. It was a nice ending to the series.
I will admit that there were times with this story where I was like, “Less thinky thinks” and more action. I was also surprised the H didn’t have the h under surveillance as she was quite the escape artist. I mean she had no money but had the right connections I guess.
January 12, 2020
Ella es una de las protas más desesperantes del mundo. Un momento dice sí, al otro no.
Voy a firmar el contrato - Ahora estoy arrepentida.
No lo haré si no nos casamos - Casarnos fue un error.
No eres nada para mí - Estoy locamente enamorada de él.
Que mujer, de verdad. El libro definitivamente lo salva Raúl. *-* Controlado, hermoso, imponente. Y con la desesperada ansia de ser padre.
Voy a firmar el contrato - Ahora estoy arrepentida.
No lo haré si no nos casamos - Casarnos fue un error.
No eres nada para mí - Estoy locamente enamorada de él.
Que mujer, de verdad. El libro definitivamente lo salva Raúl. *-* Controlado, hermoso, imponente. Y con la desesperada ansia de ser padre.
August 18, 2013
Don't like this one. The h just got on my nerves with her childishness. If not for the fact that for some obscure reason the H actually fell for her it will be a total disaster. Like the H accused, she practically used the baby to blackmail him into marrying her and then use sex to trade for his fidelity. The very fact that she ran off and broke the contract after reaping all the benefits without a thought gave me a very bad vibe, compound to that she just refused all the suggestions the H gave to solve the situation (which sounds v reasonable considering the fact the this was not a situation he had bargained for to begin with) made her seriously self centered and self serving. Seriously why does he have to marry her to get access to a baby he had paid dearly for already? I think I would have felt more sympathetic if it was the H that suggested this in the end, I can totally understand why he was so pissed especially when she doesn't even realize what her actions and words implied. Her jealousy also rubbed me the wrong way. Seriously girl you are the one that coerced him into marriage what right do you have to dictate his actions when you didn't even ascertain what he feels for you first. All in all the h's so whiny all through 3/4 of the book that it gets on my nerves. The latter part and the ending is better, especially when this wrapped up nicely the whole series.
October 22, 2023
‘She used my son as a bargaining chip to blackmail me into marriage!’
Contract Baby is the third and final book in The Husband Hunters series by Lynne Graham. First published in June of 1999, this is the story of 21 year old Polly Johnson, surrogate mother to 31 year old Raul Zaforteza's child, a man who has sworn off the institution of marriage (even though he has never been married) and yet wants a child of his own.
When Polly disappears without a sign from Vermont where Raul had placed her during the first stages of her pregnancy, it is a furious Raul that seeks her out once again, determined that he would get access to his baby who is rightfully his. Raul's fortune founded in gold and diamond mines is the result of his brilliance as a business tycoon, and as per gossip columns, wins awards on being a notorious womanizer as well.
When Raul finds her once again, it is a Polly that is in a predicament that she never thought possible; pregnant with a baby whom she thought was going to a couple whose dream she was going to fulfill. Polly finds herself in dire financial circumstances, and in no position to access what her godmother had left for her three goddaughters in her will without getting married, and keeping the home fires burning for at least a period of six months.
Raul finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place when Polly accuses him of being dishonest about the contract she signed, of which he had no knowledge of. With the British law being what it was regarding surrogacy, knowing that any judge would let the mother keep the child, if they were to believe that it was in the child's best interests, Raul has no option but to force himself to agree to a marriage of convenience between himself and Polly, the only condition upon which Polly promises to accompany him to Venezuela.
It is an angst-ridden fest for these two as they traverse the treacherous world that Raul inhabits, with Polly being forced to confront the very present past of the man she had fallen in love with months ago. Polly is ill-equipped to deal with a man such as Raul, having grown up with a strictly religious father, and it was Polly that had paid the price for her mother's infidelity which had resulted in her leaving when Polly was just seven years old. Polly's father had ensured that she remained innocent, his tyrannical nature driving away even female friends, and she had no inclination of the strength of human desire when it comes to sexual wants and need until Raul strolled into her life.
Raul's childhood made him abhor marriage, never wanting to give any woman that sort of power to dictate the terms of his life in any sense. All of that comes to head when he has to marry Polly, and it is an interesting journey to witness how Raul is brought to his very knees by the diminutive Polly who becomes his wife. It is rough going of course, which made for delicious reading experience, especially when coupled with the fiery desire that leaves both wanting more.
I believe that this would my favorite of the three installments in this series, because being the glutton for punishment that I am, I love a story that breaks and makes my heart, that infuriates and soothes me in equal doses. Contract Baby was such a story and I could not have asked for more. The only thing that would have made it all better? An epilogue to tie up the series which would have done wonders in my opinion.
I would recommend The Husband Hunter series for everyone who loves a good dose of angst-ridden romance! These three books certainly deliver on all fronts!
Final Verdict: She had dreams of marrying for love. He was determined that he never would, for any reason. Circumstances dictated otherwise. This a match made in angst-ridden heaven!
Rating = 4.5/5
For more reviews and quotes, please visit A Maldivian's Passion for Romance
November 14, 2024
Come buttare via 2 ore della tua vita?
Ma leggendo questa roba qui.
Ho pescato nel mucchio e ho pescato malissimo.
Ho cercato di dirmi che è un harmony, quindi con una certa impostazione, che è un libro con più di 20 anni, quindi qualche comportamento o modo di dire lascia il tempo che trova, ma qui non si può salvare niente.
Allora, Polly ha una madre morente che necessita di costose cure mediche quindi decide di diventare una madre in affitto. Raul è un riccone sudamericano che ha deciso che vuole diventare padre ma senza avere tra i piedi una donna. Lui la seleziona, solo che rimane colpito da lei e inizia a frequentarla senza rivelarle che è il padre del bambino.
Quando lo scopre lei se la svigna, lui la rincorre, la ricatta, lei si innamora (?), si sposano (?), si trasferiscono in Venezuela dove lei continua ad amarlo e lui fa la str****.
Happy ending e tanti saluti.
I due protagonisti sono terribili, dicono e fanno cose assurde. Lui la tratta come una pezza da piedi, la tratta male, dice frasi agghiaccianti e lei lo ama. Motivo non pervenuto.
Libro pensato malissimo e scritto peggio.
Bocciatissimo!
Ma leggendo questa roba qui.
Ho pescato nel mucchio e ho pescato malissimo.
Ho cercato di dirmi che è un harmony, quindi con una certa impostazione, che è un libro con più di 20 anni, quindi qualche comportamento o modo di dire lascia il tempo che trova, ma qui non si può salvare niente.
Allora, Polly ha una madre morente che necessita di costose cure mediche quindi decide di diventare una madre in affitto. Raul è un riccone sudamericano che ha deciso che vuole diventare padre ma senza avere tra i piedi una donna. Lui la seleziona, solo che rimane colpito da lei e inizia a frequentarla senza rivelarle che è il padre del bambino.
Quando lo scopre lei se la svigna, lui la rincorre, la ricatta, lei si innamora (?), si sposano (?), si trasferiscono in Venezuela dove lei continua ad amarlo e lui fa la str****.
Happy ending e tanti saluti.
I due protagonisti sono terribili, dicono e fanno cose assurde. Lui la tratta come una pezza da piedi, la tratta male, dice frasi agghiaccianti e lei lo ama. Motivo non pervenuto.
Libro pensato malissimo e scritto peggio.
Bocciatissimo!
September 9, 2013
This is fairly standard for a Mills and Boon, albeit with a surrogacy thrown in for a bit of drama. That's actually the most interesting part of the story, but pretty quickly once the baby's born the focus turns back to the ex-mistresses and jealousy that you'd expect. It's quite a sweet romance though, mainly because neither of the protagonists are bad people, just ones who make questionable decisions, so I enjoyed reading about their developing relationship.
Not particularly exciting, but a nice, romantic read for a rainy Saturday. 3 stars.
Not particularly exciting, but a nice, romantic read for a rainy Saturday. 3 stars.
March 6, 2013
I reaaaaaallllly wanted to like this.
I don't know what it was about this one, but both Polly & Raul rubbed me the wrong way. He was so hot/cold and moody and she acted like a little girl for the majority of the book.
I did enjoy the ending.
I don't know what it was about this one, but both Polly & Raul rubbed me the wrong way. He was so hot/cold and moody and she acted like a little girl for the majority of the book.
I did enjoy the ending.
October 25, 2022
Not as much humor as the previous two books in this trilogy. The extremely alpha hero is a bit scary in the beginning.
December 4, 2016
I LOATHE AND DESPISE HOW MUCH SHE APOLOGIZED WHEN HE WAS BEING AN ASS, AND IN THE WRONG... But i like how it played out in the end!
October 14, 2016
3.5 stars
July 21, 2026
★★★☆☆
Having now read the 1st & 3rd books in this series, I feel distinctly underwhelmed. I hoped Contract Baby would suit me better than Married to a Mistress because its heroine, Polly, is a shy wallflower rather than the tantrum-prone model type featured in the earlier book. I generally prefer quieter, more vulnerable heroines, so this seemed much closer to my usual tastes.
It is slightly better than the 1st book. The plot is stronger, the pacing is good & plenty happens to maintain interest. Unfortunately, it still lacks the emotional depth that would have made the story truly rewarding. There are numerous dramatic ingredients, but almost all of them remain on the surface.
Polly is a 21-year-old naïve Christian virgin who has been raised to be the goodest of good girls. She is purer than pure, sweeter than sweet, tiny, petite & so sheltered that she frequently reads more like a 14-year-old than an adult woman.
Raul is a wealthy Venezuelan cattle baron & horse breeder in his early 30s. His childhood left him profoundly distrustful of women, marriage & conventional family life.
Raul’s mother was his father’s mistress before his father chose to marry a rich man’s daughter. His future wife apparently had no idea that he already had a pregnant mistress, yet he kept the 2 women living close together & seemed to enjoy having them fight over him.
Raul consequently grew up being used as a pawn in his parents’ emotional warfare. His mother drank heavily before eventually drowning herself when Raul was only 9. His father then blackmailed his wife into adopting the boy.
With this appalling history, Raul understandably fears repeating the same destructive family pattern & does not want his own child fought over by 2 parents. However, because he neither trusts nor respects women enough to consider marriage, he decides to produce an heir through surrogacy instead.
Rather than choosing a psychologically suitable surrogate, Raul secretly observes the candidates through a 1-way mirror & selects Polly because something about her attracts him. Her innocence appeals to his cynicism because he distrusts more experienced women.
This is despite being warned that Polly may not be emotionally capable of surrendering her baby. She has only agreed to the arrangement because her mother is dying & desperately needs an expensive operation.
Despite her inpending grief of a dying mother, Raul chooses her anyway.
That means he knowingly selects a vulnerable, childlike young woman who is already undergoing enormous emotional trauma, intending to use her body to incubate his heir because she appeals to him personally. He does not appear to care what giving away her biological child may do to her afterwards.
The baby is genetically Polly’s, rather than being conceived with another woman’s egg. She therefore agrees to surrender her own flesh & blood because she has been told the child is intended for a loving married couple who are tragically unable to have a baby themselves.
Unfortunately, Polly’s mother dies despite receiving the operation. Polly is left pregnant, orphaned, grief-stricken & severely depressed in America, where she is living under the terms of the surrogacy agreement.
One of Raul’s servants is caring for her & becomes worried enough to report her condition to him. Raul then decides to visit Polly while pretending to be a stranger, supposedly to be a friend and shoulder to cry in in her grief. He befriends her & uses all his worldly charm to lift her out of her depression.
Of course Polly falls in love with him.
She is extraordinarily naïve, pregnant, grieving, isolated in another country & has nobody else in her life. Raul becomes her only real friend. He is also a sophisticated, attractive man who knows perfectly well how appealing he is to women.
Yet the book later expects us to believe that Raul did not realise Polly was falling in love with him. I found that completely unconvincing. He understood her attraction, manipulated the frequency of his visits & deliberately kept her emotionally dependent enough to need him without allowing her to depend on him completely.
The servant eventually becomes so uncomfortable with the deception that she tells Polly the truth: Raul is the biological father of the baby.
Polly is horrified. She discovers that there is no loving, childless couple waiting for her baby. Instead, the child is intended for a single millionaire playboy who sleeps with a succession of glamorous women.
She researches Raul & finds photograph after photograph of him with models. This destroys both her trust & the private hopes she had begun building around him. She had allowed herself to imagine that his attention meant he cared for her too, perhaps even that they might eventually marry.
What else was this desperately lonely girl supposed to cling to?
Instead, she learns that Raul selected her to carry his child, deceived her about his identity & befriended her under false pretences while knowing almost everything about her. She feels humiliated by her own naïvety & flees back to England.
Raul later has the gall to argue that although he lied about who he was, Polly also deceived him by failing to confide that she was pregnant. That comparison is ridiculous. Polly did not know how to tell a man she was falling in love with that she was carrying a surrogate baby, particularly when she feared losing the only meaningful connection she had formed during her grief. Raul, meanwhile, knew the entire truth from the beginning and created this situation and this forced her into a lie.
He also claims it was his lawyers, rather than Raul himself, who invented the story about the baby being intended for a married couple. That may remove one element of his direct responsibility, but it does not alter the fact that he selected Polly despite being warned about her vulnerability, then entered her life under a false identity.
The novel begins several months later, shortly before the baby is due. Raul has finally hired a detective & located Polly.
I found the delay peculiar. Raul had thoroughly investigated Polly before choosing her as his surrogate. He knew her identity, history & circumstances, yet somehow could not find her for months after she returned to England.
When he finally arrives, he is furious that she ran away. He finds her in a terrible situation. Polly is exhausting herself with work because she is now preparing to become a single mother when she never expected to raise the baby herself. She is suffering from migraines, struggling financially & living through the conditional charity of her late godmother’s former housekeeper.
The godmother has left Polly a fortune, but she can inherit only if she marries & remains married for 6 months. The housekeeper therefore wants Polly to marry her useless adult son so that they can gain access to the money. Neither appears particularly troubled by Polly’s pregnancy and they assume some lover abandoned her.
Thankfully, Polly refuses to marry the son.
Raul sweeps in, removes her from the situation, admits her to hospital & arranges proper care for her. This creates a promising reversal: the damaged, controlling hero who refuses to love anyone is forced into close contact with the vulnerable woman carrying his child, while Polly proves unexpectedly capable of standing up to him.
She refuses to surrender her baby to a man who lied to her & whom she does not trust to be a good father. Raul repeatedly accuses her of emotional blackmail, first for running away & later for supposedly using their newborn child against him.
Polly’s own childhood explains why the issue matters so deeply to her. Her father gained custody after her mother left him for another man, then prevented Polly from seeing her mother throughout her childhood. Just as Raul’s mother used him against his father, Polly’s father used her to punish her mother.
Polly therefore believes a child should ideally grow up with 2 loving parents. She does not want to surrender her baby to a single father whose romantic life appears to consist of an endless parade of women. She hopes she may eventually marry for love & give her child a stable family.
Polly does have some backbone. Despite her intense physical attraction to Raul & the love she keeps denying, she continues telling him that she will not give up her baby. He has the nerve she go to Venezuela and live like a nun while being near their child, while he will continue to live a free single life. Thank God she tells him hell no, eventually saying she'd rather stay in England and would only ever go to Venezuela as his wife. That he has to sacrifice something too if she is sacrificing her whole life. He is furious because he's already told her he despises marriage and will never do it.
But eventually he must cave as its the only way to get his baby home and yet he hates her for being a "golddigging blackmailer".
SPOILERS AHEAD
This should have been an excellent foundation for a deeply emotional romance. Unfortunately, the story never develops much beyond its initial premise. Most of the conflict revolves around hormones, body betrayal, accusations of dishonesty & repeated arguments about who is manipulating whom.
Polly spends far too much of the book as a wavering ball of angsty emotions centred entirely upon Raul. She is a plot device rather than a person. She has no apparent interests, ambitions, skills or meaningful life outside him. I genuinely wondered how she filled her days once she had entered Raul’s wealthy household, particularly when servants were available to perform so much of the childcare.
The novel does not allow her to mature into somebody Raul—or the reader—might genuinely respect. Raul repeatedly calls her a child, usually to mock her sexual innocence, naïvety or virginal responses. I needed her to develop substance as a person and prove him wrong.
She never does.
The baby itself is also treated like a plot device, despite being the centre of the entire story. We are told or expected to assume that Polly is a devoted mother, but the book does very little to show that relationship on the page.
This was an enormous wasted opportunity. Scenes of Polly caring tenderly for the child could have revealed her competence, maturity & emotional strength. They might also have affected Raul profoundly because of his own traumatic relationship with his mother. Watching Polly become the loving mother he never truly had could have deepened both characters & helped transform them into a believable family.
Instead, that emotional material is barely used.
Raul has a potentially meaningful subplot involving his estranged maternal grandfather. Pride has kept the 2 men apart, & Polly eventually helps bring the grandfather back into Raul’s life. That is one of the few ways in which she meaningfully improves his world, but even this is not developed enough to give her character the dimension she needs.
The other-woman drama is similarly abundant but shallow.
While Polly is still pregnant & in hospital, Raul goes out with a model. He kisses Polly, then walks outside & straight into the other woman’s arms. Polly witnesses this & is deeply hurt, but she never confronts him because she is afraid of his reaction.
There is also an air stewardess who drapes herself all over Raul while making her interest blatantly obvious. Raul allows it, yet Polly’s jealousy is treated largely as evidence of her immaturity rather than a reasonable response to his behaviour.
Most significantly, there is Raul’s former fiancée. Years earlier, she left him for a richer man. Now widowed, she wants Raul back. He allows her to live on one of his nearby ranches, invites her to social events & permits her to act as hostess at his house parties, supposedly out of pity & because he finds her amusing company.
Are we genuinely expected to believe this worldly, supposedly perceptive man cannot recognise that she wants to resume their relationship?
The woman tells Polly that she is Raul’s mistress & deliberately attempts to destabilise the marriage. Yet Raul keeps her close enough to create trouble, then behaves as though Polly’s suspicions are unreasonable.
The one time Polly tries to discuss another woman with him, Raul reacts with fury, then walks out on her and makes her arrive at her new home amongst strangers alone. He explicitly warns her never to question him about other women again. Polly consequently becomes frightened to raise the subject.
At the end, Raul has the nerve to say that she should have told him his former fiancée was causing trouble, because he would have put an immediate stop to it.
How was she supposed to tell him after the way he responded previously?
This is my main objection to the other-woman drama. It works best when the hero makes choices that genuinely encourage another woman, causing real damage for which he must eventually accept responsibility. Here, Raul repeatedly enables these situations, yet the story frames the central problem as Polly’s jealousy, insecurity & childish imagination.
He is allowed to skate past his own contribution.
Perhaps he did not sleep with most of these women during the marriage, but he permitted flirtatious behaviour, kept his former fiancée deeply embedded in his social life & created an environment in which Polly had ample reason to doubt him. Rather than being held accountable, he gaslights her into believing the problem exists almost entirely in her own mind.
His eventual gesture of throwing his former fiancée out of his life is far too shallow to repair that. He tells her never to return because she has lied & caused trouble between him & his wife, but this proves only that he will remove one particular woman after her behaviour becomes undeniable. It does not demonstrate that Raul understands how his own arrogance, secrecy & lack of boundaries helped create the situation.
Why should Polly trust that he will not surround himself with 10 more models tomorrow?
The body-betrayal element also becomes excessive. I dislike heroines who turn into helpless puddles every time the hero looks at them. Polly’s overwhelming physical response repeatedly overpowers her judgement, making her seem even younger & more emotionally unstable rather than adding convincing passion to the romance.
At times, the dynamic has disturbing undercurrents. Raul selects the most naïve, childlike candidate to bear his child, deceives her, manipulates her emotional dependence, mocks her immaturity & then treats her fears as irrational. Polly is legally an adult, but the imbalance between them is so pronounced that she sometimes feels less like his equal than a child bride he has moulded to suit himself.
Raul controls the information, money, environment & terms of their relationship, while Polly remains almost completely undeveloped outside her feelings for him.
Despite all these criticisms, Contract Baby is not a terrible book. Lynne Graham knows how to construct a fast-moving romance, & this is noticeably more engaging than the 1st instalment. The premise is intriguing, the storyline is well paced, the writing evokes emotion & there are plenty of events to anticipate. The intimate scenes are also intense.
The frustration comes from recognising how much stronger the novel could have been. Everything that could have been used to create a layered, emotionally powerful story is merely touched upon without being fully explored.
Polly never becomes a rounded adult woman with a life, identity or purpose beyond Raul & the baby. Raul never truly confronts how thoroughly he has manipulated her or how much responsibility he bears for her insecurity. The other women generate temporary emotional fits rather than lasting consequences, while the central baby plot is never used to develop the family bond between the couple.
Contract Baby is a little better than Married to a Mistress, but it suffers from the same fundamental problem: plenty of plot, drama & romantic ingredients, but not enough heart. It kept me reading & gave me more to engage with than the earlier book, yet still left me feeling underwhelmed.
Having now read the 1st & 3rd books in this series, I feel distinctly underwhelmed. I hoped Contract Baby would suit me better than Married to a Mistress because its heroine, Polly, is a shy wallflower rather than the tantrum-prone model type featured in the earlier book. I generally prefer quieter, more vulnerable heroines, so this seemed much closer to my usual tastes.
It is slightly better than the 1st book. The plot is stronger, the pacing is good & plenty happens to maintain interest. Unfortunately, it still lacks the emotional depth that would have made the story truly rewarding. There are numerous dramatic ingredients, but almost all of them remain on the surface.
Polly is a 21-year-old naïve Christian virgin who has been raised to be the goodest of good girls. She is purer than pure, sweeter than sweet, tiny, petite & so sheltered that she frequently reads more like a 14-year-old than an adult woman.
Raul is a wealthy Venezuelan cattle baron & horse breeder in his early 30s. His childhood left him profoundly distrustful of women, marriage & conventional family life.
Raul’s mother was his father’s mistress before his father chose to marry a rich man’s daughter. His future wife apparently had no idea that he already had a pregnant mistress, yet he kept the 2 women living close together & seemed to enjoy having them fight over him.
Raul consequently grew up being used as a pawn in his parents’ emotional warfare. His mother drank heavily before eventually drowning herself when Raul was only 9. His father then blackmailed his wife into adopting the boy.
With this appalling history, Raul understandably fears repeating the same destructive family pattern & does not want his own child fought over by 2 parents. However, because he neither trusts nor respects women enough to consider marriage, he decides to produce an heir through surrogacy instead.
Rather than choosing a psychologically suitable surrogate, Raul secretly observes the candidates through a 1-way mirror & selects Polly because something about her attracts him. Her innocence appeals to his cynicism because he distrusts more experienced women.
This is despite being warned that Polly may not be emotionally capable of surrendering her baby. She has only agreed to the arrangement because her mother is dying & desperately needs an expensive operation.
Despite her inpending grief of a dying mother, Raul chooses her anyway.
That means he knowingly selects a vulnerable, childlike young woman who is already undergoing enormous emotional trauma, intending to use her body to incubate his heir because she appeals to him personally. He does not appear to care what giving away her biological child may do to her afterwards.
The baby is genetically Polly’s, rather than being conceived with another woman’s egg. She therefore agrees to surrender her own flesh & blood because she has been told the child is intended for a loving married couple who are tragically unable to have a baby themselves.
Unfortunately, Polly’s mother dies despite receiving the operation. Polly is left pregnant, orphaned, grief-stricken & severely depressed in America, where she is living under the terms of the surrogacy agreement.
One of Raul’s servants is caring for her & becomes worried enough to report her condition to him. Raul then decides to visit Polly while pretending to be a stranger, supposedly to be a friend and shoulder to cry in in her grief. He befriends her & uses all his worldly charm to lift her out of her depression.
Of course Polly falls in love with him.
She is extraordinarily naïve, pregnant, grieving, isolated in another country & has nobody else in her life. Raul becomes her only real friend. He is also a sophisticated, attractive man who knows perfectly well how appealing he is to women.
Yet the book later expects us to believe that Raul did not realise Polly was falling in love with him. I found that completely unconvincing. He understood her attraction, manipulated the frequency of his visits & deliberately kept her emotionally dependent enough to need him without allowing her to depend on him completely.
The servant eventually becomes so uncomfortable with the deception that she tells Polly the truth: Raul is the biological father of the baby.
Polly is horrified. She discovers that there is no loving, childless couple waiting for her baby. Instead, the child is intended for a single millionaire playboy who sleeps with a succession of glamorous women.
She researches Raul & finds photograph after photograph of him with models. This destroys both her trust & the private hopes she had begun building around him. She had allowed herself to imagine that his attention meant he cared for her too, perhaps even that they might eventually marry.
What else was this desperately lonely girl supposed to cling to?
Instead, she learns that Raul selected her to carry his child, deceived her about his identity & befriended her under false pretences while knowing almost everything about her. She feels humiliated by her own naïvety & flees back to England.
Raul later has the gall to argue that although he lied about who he was, Polly also deceived him by failing to confide that she was pregnant. That comparison is ridiculous. Polly did not know how to tell a man she was falling in love with that she was carrying a surrogate baby, particularly when she feared losing the only meaningful connection she had formed during her grief. Raul, meanwhile, knew the entire truth from the beginning and created this situation and this forced her into a lie.
He also claims it was his lawyers, rather than Raul himself, who invented the story about the baby being intended for a married couple. That may remove one element of his direct responsibility, but it does not alter the fact that he selected Polly despite being warned about her vulnerability, then entered her life under a false identity.
The novel begins several months later, shortly before the baby is due. Raul has finally hired a detective & located Polly.
I found the delay peculiar. Raul had thoroughly investigated Polly before choosing her as his surrogate. He knew her identity, history & circumstances, yet somehow could not find her for months after she returned to England.
When he finally arrives, he is furious that she ran away. He finds her in a terrible situation. Polly is exhausting herself with work because she is now preparing to become a single mother when she never expected to raise the baby herself. She is suffering from migraines, struggling financially & living through the conditional charity of her late godmother’s former housekeeper.
The godmother has left Polly a fortune, but she can inherit only if she marries & remains married for 6 months. The housekeeper therefore wants Polly to marry her useless adult son so that they can gain access to the money. Neither appears particularly troubled by Polly’s pregnancy and they assume some lover abandoned her.
Thankfully, Polly refuses to marry the son.
Raul sweeps in, removes her from the situation, admits her to hospital & arranges proper care for her. This creates a promising reversal: the damaged, controlling hero who refuses to love anyone is forced into close contact with the vulnerable woman carrying his child, while Polly proves unexpectedly capable of standing up to him.
She refuses to surrender her baby to a man who lied to her & whom she does not trust to be a good father. Raul repeatedly accuses her of emotional blackmail, first for running away & later for supposedly using their newborn child against him.
Polly’s own childhood explains why the issue matters so deeply to her. Her father gained custody after her mother left him for another man, then prevented Polly from seeing her mother throughout her childhood. Just as Raul’s mother used him against his father, Polly’s father used her to punish her mother.
Polly therefore believes a child should ideally grow up with 2 loving parents. She does not want to surrender her baby to a single father whose romantic life appears to consist of an endless parade of women. She hopes she may eventually marry for love & give her child a stable family.
Polly does have some backbone. Despite her intense physical attraction to Raul & the love she keeps denying, she continues telling him that she will not give up her baby. He has the nerve she go to Venezuela and live like a nun while being near their child, while he will continue to live a free single life. Thank God she tells him hell no, eventually saying she'd rather stay in England and would only ever go to Venezuela as his wife. That he has to sacrifice something too if she is sacrificing her whole life. He is furious because he's already told her he despises marriage and will never do it.
But eventually he must cave as its the only way to get his baby home and yet he hates her for being a "golddigging blackmailer".
SPOILERS AHEAD
This should have been an excellent foundation for a deeply emotional romance. Unfortunately, the story never develops much beyond its initial premise. Most of the conflict revolves around hormones, body betrayal, accusations of dishonesty & repeated arguments about who is manipulating whom.
Polly spends far too much of the book as a wavering ball of angsty emotions centred entirely upon Raul. She is a plot device rather than a person. She has no apparent interests, ambitions, skills or meaningful life outside him. I genuinely wondered how she filled her days once she had entered Raul’s wealthy household, particularly when servants were available to perform so much of the childcare.
The novel does not allow her to mature into somebody Raul—or the reader—might genuinely respect. Raul repeatedly calls her a child, usually to mock her sexual innocence, naïvety or virginal responses. I needed her to develop substance as a person and prove him wrong.
She never does.
The baby itself is also treated like a plot device, despite being the centre of the entire story. We are told or expected to assume that Polly is a devoted mother, but the book does very little to show that relationship on the page.
This was an enormous wasted opportunity. Scenes of Polly caring tenderly for the child could have revealed her competence, maturity & emotional strength. They might also have affected Raul profoundly because of his own traumatic relationship with his mother. Watching Polly become the loving mother he never truly had could have deepened both characters & helped transform them into a believable family.
Instead, that emotional material is barely used.
Raul has a potentially meaningful subplot involving his estranged maternal grandfather. Pride has kept the 2 men apart, & Polly eventually helps bring the grandfather back into Raul’s life. That is one of the few ways in which she meaningfully improves his world, but even this is not developed enough to give her character the dimension she needs.
The other-woman drama is similarly abundant but shallow.
While Polly is still pregnant & in hospital, Raul goes out with a model. He kisses Polly, then walks outside & straight into the other woman’s arms. Polly witnesses this & is deeply hurt, but she never confronts him because she is afraid of his reaction.
There is also an air stewardess who drapes herself all over Raul while making her interest blatantly obvious. Raul allows it, yet Polly’s jealousy is treated largely as evidence of her immaturity rather than a reasonable response to his behaviour.
Most significantly, there is Raul’s former fiancée. Years earlier, she left him for a richer man. Now widowed, she wants Raul back. He allows her to live on one of his nearby ranches, invites her to social events & permits her to act as hostess at his house parties, supposedly out of pity & because he finds her amusing company.
Are we genuinely expected to believe this worldly, supposedly perceptive man cannot recognise that she wants to resume their relationship?
The woman tells Polly that she is Raul’s mistress & deliberately attempts to destabilise the marriage. Yet Raul keeps her close enough to create trouble, then behaves as though Polly’s suspicions are unreasonable.
The one time Polly tries to discuss another woman with him, Raul reacts with fury, then walks out on her and makes her arrive at her new home amongst strangers alone. He explicitly warns her never to question him about other women again. Polly consequently becomes frightened to raise the subject.
At the end, Raul has the nerve to say that she should have told him his former fiancée was causing trouble, because he would have put an immediate stop to it.
How was she supposed to tell him after the way he responded previously?
This is my main objection to the other-woman drama. It works best when the hero makes choices that genuinely encourage another woman, causing real damage for which he must eventually accept responsibility. Here, Raul repeatedly enables these situations, yet the story frames the central problem as Polly’s jealousy, insecurity & childish imagination.
He is allowed to skate past his own contribution.
Perhaps he did not sleep with most of these women during the marriage, but he permitted flirtatious behaviour, kept his former fiancée deeply embedded in his social life & created an environment in which Polly had ample reason to doubt him. Rather than being held accountable, he gaslights her into believing the problem exists almost entirely in her own mind.
His eventual gesture of throwing his former fiancée out of his life is far too shallow to repair that. He tells her never to return because she has lied & caused trouble between him & his wife, but this proves only that he will remove one particular woman after her behaviour becomes undeniable. It does not demonstrate that Raul understands how his own arrogance, secrecy & lack of boundaries helped create the situation.
Why should Polly trust that he will not surround himself with 10 more models tomorrow?
The body-betrayal element also becomes excessive. I dislike heroines who turn into helpless puddles every time the hero looks at them. Polly’s overwhelming physical response repeatedly overpowers her judgement, making her seem even younger & more emotionally unstable rather than adding convincing passion to the romance.
At times, the dynamic has disturbing undercurrents. Raul selects the most naïve, childlike candidate to bear his child, deceives her, manipulates her emotional dependence, mocks her immaturity & then treats her fears as irrational. Polly is legally an adult, but the imbalance between them is so pronounced that she sometimes feels less like his equal than a child bride he has moulded to suit himself.
Raul controls the information, money, environment & terms of their relationship, while Polly remains almost completely undeveloped outside her feelings for him.
Despite all these criticisms, Contract Baby is not a terrible book. Lynne Graham knows how to construct a fast-moving romance, & this is noticeably more engaging than the 1st instalment. The premise is intriguing, the storyline is well paced, the writing evokes emotion & there are plenty of events to anticipate. The intimate scenes are also intense.
The frustration comes from recognising how much stronger the novel could have been. Everything that could have been used to create a layered, emotionally powerful story is merely touched upon without being fully explored.
Polly never becomes a rounded adult woman with a life, identity or purpose beyond Raul & the baby. Raul never truly confronts how thoroughly he has manipulated her or how much responsibility he bears for her insecurity. The other women generate temporary emotional fits rather than lasting consequences, while the central baby plot is never used to develop the family bond between the couple.
Contract Baby is a little better than Married to a Mistress, but it suffers from the same fundamental problem: plenty of plot, drama & romantic ingredients, but not enough heart. It kept me reading & gave me more to engage with than the earlier book, yet still left me feeling underwhelmed.
July 5, 2011
I read this book a few years back. They put all 3 books in the series Called the Prusuit. That's the book i originally review years back but decided to leave individual reviews.
Nancy Leeward cared deeply for her goddaughters, but how had those three foolish girls repaid her love? Maxie was living with a married man, Darcy was a single mom, and Polly was being paid to bear some selfish man's child. Nancy was determined to force them into happiness . . . by stipulating in her will that her millions would only be bequeathed to each of them if they married within a year, and stayed married for six months. . . .
And Polly agreed to act as a surrogate mother, but found herself stalked by a father with marriage on the brain in
Contract Baby
This is the second book in the series. Polly is an surrogate and Raul wants the baby so British law the only way to ensure that would be to marry her. This might benefit Polly because she needs a husband to get the money from her godmothers will.
Join my book group on Facebook (Romance Novel Junkies) as well as LIKE us on our fan page (Romance Novel Junkies Book Reviews). We have over 500 members, which includes well known and indie authors and avid readers as members, who are apart of this group. We would love to hear about new books and thoughts. Also check out our kindle and ebook lending library. Twitter @romanceJUNKIES.
Nancy Leeward cared deeply for her goddaughters, but how had those three foolish girls repaid her love? Maxie was living with a married man, Darcy was a single mom, and Polly was being paid to bear some selfish man's child. Nancy was determined to force them into happiness . . . by stipulating in her will that her millions would only be bequeathed to each of them if they married within a year, and stayed married for six months. . . .
And Polly agreed to act as a surrogate mother, but found herself stalked by a father with marriage on the brain in
Contract Baby
This is the second book in the series. Polly is an surrogate and Raul wants the baby so British law the only way to ensure that would be to marry her. This might benefit Polly because she needs a husband to get the money from her godmothers will.
Join my book group on Facebook (Romance Novel Junkies) as well as LIKE us on our fan page (Romance Novel Junkies Book Reviews). We have over 500 members, which includes well known and indie authors and avid readers as members, who are apart of this group. We would love to hear about new books and thoughts. Also check out our kindle and ebook lending library. Twitter @romanceJUNKIES.
December 11, 2020
So can we just agree that a woman, using her own eggs, is NOT a surrogate ? That's a biological mother giving up her child. A surrogate doesn't contributes generic material, she is just the carrier. This is one of those books were they base it the whole story on a word that is being used incorrectly. Furthermore, it's poorly edited. You kinda have to guess what's dialogue because of the lack of punctuation marks. At $3 for such a short book, I expected better quality. I could not make it past the free sample, it was just painful to read.
March 25, 2020
The three heroes in these three books seemed like triplets! Good wrap up at end
July 16, 2020
3.75 Stars
August 24, 2024
This was a good book (a surrogate mother story with a plot twist), all the more so because the h, despite being only 21, was more mature than a lot of others, ready to admit her mistakes, apologize when she was wrong and - very surprisingly - admitted her true feelings for the H a lot sooner than most, none of that feigned indifference or phony "I HATE you" declarations. She was upfront with the H about how she felt and what she wanted. She also told him off when he deserved to be told off (which happens several times) and this was no runaway h, either, except in the beginning when she had good reason (the H hiding his true identity so he could check her out as a suitable baby mommy). and later (after the baby was born and she overheard a remark the H made about her being a conniving gold-digger), she only left for a while to have time to think, with no intention of trying to keep the H away from their son.
You could say that while he was being deceptive while they were in Vermont, she was also guilty of keeping secrets, but in her case, not knowing she was carrying his baby, how could she tell him she was pregnant and planning to give her baby to a couple (as she thought) in exchange for money so her mother could have surgery that might save her life? Despite having fallen for him, he appeared to think of her just as a friend, so that would be quite a lot of into to give.
There were funny moments, like when she was so angry at the H she threw a pitcher of water on him, and he's often left wondering why she's so sweet and even tempered with everyone but with him it's another story! Then again, compared to him, her temper's nothing!
It wasn't easy for the H to be truthful about his feelings, as he had major trust/relationship issues, stemming from his unhappy childhood, as the adopted son of his own birth father, who was married to one woman while getting the H's mother pregnant. This was a complicated story and left a lasting impression on him, and a bad one of marriage and commitment, made worse when at 19, the OW dumped him for a rich older man. He preferred to hide behind indifference and a succession of affairs with sophisticated blondes. (Ironically, that's a good description of the OW.)
Even when the OW (determined to get him back) spun her web of lies, trying to catch both the H and h in them, the h stands her ground, doesn't take off in a huff, or play the "I don't want you, don't you dare touch me" game with the H and is determined to fight for what she wants, but also wants the truth!
There's a token OM, but he there mostly to show how jealous the H can be, as he realizes how much the h means to him.
I thought the ending was a bit too much like a scene from a hokey Hallmark movie, with the h's two BFFs and their husbands all at the family home the H bought her as a surprise gift, all talking about how terrific their lives are. I would have preferred the two of them alone with their adorable baby son, but I guess because this novel was the last in a trilogy (I haven't read the others yet), the author wanted to tie everything together at the end.
Worth reading!
You could say that while he was being deceptive while they were in Vermont, she was also guilty of keeping secrets, but in her case, not knowing she was carrying his baby, how could she tell him she was pregnant and planning to give her baby to a couple (as she thought) in exchange for money so her mother could have surgery that might save her life? Despite having fallen for him, he appeared to think of her just as a friend, so that would be quite a lot of into to give.
There were funny moments, like when she was so angry at the H she threw a pitcher of water on him, and he's often left wondering why she's so sweet and even tempered with everyone but with him it's another story! Then again, compared to him, her temper's nothing!
It wasn't easy for the H to be truthful about his feelings, as he had major trust/relationship issues, stemming from his unhappy childhood, as the adopted son of his own birth father, who was married to one woman while getting the H's mother pregnant. This was a complicated story and left a lasting impression on him, and a bad one of marriage and commitment, made worse when at 19, the OW dumped him for a rich older man. He preferred to hide behind indifference and a succession of affairs with sophisticated blondes. (Ironically, that's a good description of the OW.)
Even when the OW (determined to get him back) spun her web of lies, trying to catch both the H and h in them, the h stands her ground, doesn't take off in a huff, or play the "I don't want you, don't you dare touch me" game with the H and is determined to fight for what she wants, but also wants the truth!
There's a token OM, but he there mostly to show how jealous the H can be, as he realizes how much the h means to him.
I thought the ending was a bit too much like a scene from a hokey Hallmark movie, with the h's two BFFs and their husbands all at the family home the H bought her as a surprise gift, all talking about how terrific their lives are. I would have preferred the two of them alone with their adorable baby son, but I guess because this novel was the last in a trilogy (I haven't read the others yet), the author wanted to tie everything together at the end.
Worth reading!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2024
????
I love the alpha hero in a book and I enjoy Lynn Graham's books. But he was just so hypocritical it made me sick 🤢...... She can't even ask about another woman or he has a meltdown like a 2 year old while calling her immature. If it didn't make me so mad for her would have laughed. Then he threatens to cut her up and feed her to jaguars 😡 so unbelievably horrible. She doesn't know this guy and she's going to another country and he threatens her like that. Disgusting. And the neighbor from hell .... Wow. That was the last thing she needed. And him being so terrible with his words was not romantic in the least I feel like most of this book was not a romance but an introduction to an abusive relationship (what to avoid). I gave it a 2 star because they made up and he eventually defends her and tells her loves her but God she really put up with a lot.
I love the alpha hero in a book and I enjoy Lynn Graham's books. But he was just so hypocritical it made me sick 🤢...... She can't even ask about another woman or he has a meltdown like a 2 year old while calling her immature. If it didn't make me so mad for her would have laughed. Then he threatens to cut her up and feed her to jaguars 😡 so unbelievably horrible. She doesn't know this guy and she's going to another country and he threatens her like that. Disgusting. And the neighbor from hell .... Wow. That was the last thing she needed. And him being so terrible with his words was not romantic in the least I feel like most of this book was not a romance but an introduction to an abusive relationship (what to avoid). I gave it a 2 star because they made up and he eventually defends her and tells her loves her but God she really put up with a lot.
October 24, 2021
So much drama i really enjoyed it.
Didn't like the hero for most of the book but couldn't put it down.
Pregnant with his kid heroine is a surrogate who disappears when she finds out hero is the fathers baby. The same guy who has been cosying up to her but she was told the baby was for a lovely couple add to that her mum had just died so she ran. She runs twice and there's even a point where it looks like she's run for a 3rd time but she hadn't lol.
I don't know what it is but I love it when they run. Make them pay 🤣 especially if they're an ass like this hero was hehehe
Didn't like the hero for most of the book but couldn't put it down.
Pregnant with his kid heroine is a surrogate who disappears when she finds out hero is the fathers baby. The same guy who has been cosying up to her but she was told the baby was for a lovely couple add to that her mum had just died so she ran. She runs twice and there's even a point where it looks like she's run for a 3rd time but she hadn't lol.
I don't know what it is but I love it when they run. Make them pay 🤣 especially if they're an ass like this hero was hehehe
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2018
Contract Baby
She is one of three girls who was left money when their godmother died. But there was a catch. To get the money they each had to be married. She had become a surrogate for money to pay for her mother's surgery. But things go wrong and she has run off during the pregnancy. The father of the child wants her back. There are three interconnected characters in the trilogy.
She is one of three girls who was left money when their godmother died. But there was a catch. To get the money they each had to be married. She had become a surrogate for money to pay for her mother's surgery. But things go wrong and she has run off during the pregnancy. The father of the child wants her back. There are three interconnected characters in the trilogy.
July 8, 2020
Another great book by Lynne Graham.
A 5 star review for this book by author Lynne Graham. This one was worth staying up all night to read. I have read many of her other books. She writes with great character development and interesting plots that are always varied and different. I particularly loved the way she wrapped up the ending for Raul and Polly. Paul's grandfather but was a great little detail among the many that make this book one I even stay up to reread.
A 5 star review for this book by author Lynne Graham. This one was worth staying up all night to read. I have read many of her other books. She writes with great character development and interesting plots that are always varied and different. I particularly loved the way she wrapped up the ending for Raul and Polly. Paul's grandfather but was a great little detail among the many that make this book one I even stay up to reread.
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