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What Daddy Doesn't Know
HE'S A FATHER --- BUT HE DOESN'T KNOW IT ...
Juliet McNeil has been keeping a secret for more than eight years --- a secret from Blake Ramsden. They spent one night together all that time ago ... and Mary Jane McNeil was the result.
Juliet and Mary Jane are a pair, a family of two, and they're happy that way. So what happens when Blake, the man who unknowingly fathered Mary Jane, returns to San Diego? What happens when Juliet, an attorney, develops a professional --- and then a personal --- relationship with him?
What happens when he meets his daughter?
Juliet McNeil has been keeping a secret for more than eight years --- a secret from Blake Ramsden. They spent one night together all that time ago ... and Mary Jane McNeil was the result.
Juliet and Mary Jane are a pair, a family of two, and they're happy that way. So what happens when Blake, the man who unknowingly fathered Mary Jane, returns to San Diego? What happens when Juliet, an attorney, develops a professional --- and then a personal --- relationship with him?
What happens when he meets his daughter?
298 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
43 people want to read
About the author
Tara Taylor Quinn
374 books1,459 followersTara Taylor Quinn began her love affair with Harlequin when she was fourteen years old and picked up a free promotional copy of a Harlequin Romance in a hometown grocery store. The relationship was solidified the year she was suspended from her high school typing class for hiding a Harlequin Romance behind the keys of her electric typewriter. Unaware that her instructor loomed close by, Ms. Quinn read blissfully on with one finger resting on the automatic repeating period key. She finished the book in the principal’s office. Forced to leave her romances in her locker after that, Ms. Quinn’s typing skills improved - a fact for which she is eternally grateful.
With over 80 original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA Today bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is a winner of the 2008 National Reader's Choice Award, four time finalist for the RWA Rita Award, a finalist for the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award, the Holt Medallion and appears regularly on the Waldenbooks bestsellers list. Ms. Quinn writes for Harlequin and MIRA Books. Reviewer, Cindy Penn, wordweaving.com says, “Amazing character development is the hallmark of author Tara Taylor Quinn’s work. Indeed, Taylor’s profound observations of human nature and intimate understanding of values and priorities lends extraordinary psychological depth to all her work.”
Tara Taylor Quinn was born and raised in Ohio. Though she wrote her first story at the age of seven, her professional writing career began ten years later when she was hired as a stringer with the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. She attended Wright State University and graduated from Harding College in Arkansas with a degree in English and Journalism. She published several magazine articles before turning to writing as a full-time occupation.
Ms. Quinn is a Past President of the Romance Writers of America and served for eight years on the Board of Directors of that association. She has a wide range of experience as a public speaker and workshop presenter for writers groups around the country.
When she’s not home with her owners, Jerry Lee and Taylor Marie, or fulfilling speaking engagements, Tara loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little small town antique shops all across the country..
With over 80 original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA Today bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is a winner of the 2008 National Reader's Choice Award, four time finalist for the RWA Rita Award, a finalist for the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award, the Holt Medallion and appears regularly on the Waldenbooks bestsellers list. Ms. Quinn writes for Harlequin and MIRA Books. Reviewer, Cindy Penn, wordweaving.com says, “Amazing character development is the hallmark of author Tara Taylor Quinn’s work. Indeed, Taylor’s profound observations of human nature and intimate understanding of values and priorities lends extraordinary psychological depth to all her work.”
Tara Taylor Quinn was born and raised in Ohio. Though she wrote her first story at the age of seven, her professional writing career began ten years later when she was hired as a stringer with the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. She attended Wright State University and graduated from Harding College in Arkansas with a degree in English and Journalism. She published several magazine articles before turning to writing as a full-time occupation.
Ms. Quinn is a Past President of the Romance Writers of America and served for eight years on the Board of Directors of that association. She has a wide range of experience as a public speaker and workshop presenter for writers groups around the country.
When she’s not home with her owners, Jerry Lee and Taylor Marie, or fulfilling speaking engagements, Tara loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little small town antique shops all across the country..
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 19, 2015
What Daddy Doesn’t Know is the ninth book in the Shelter Valley series by Tara Taylor Quinn (although it seems to bear no relation to Shelter Valley at all…). Attorney Juliet McNeil finds herself defending property developer, Blake Ramsden on fraud charges. But Blake doesn’t know that their one-night-stand, nine years ago, produced a daughter, Mary Jane. Taylor Quinn builds her story slowly, (excruciatingly so: this novel could lose 100 pages and be better for it), and all the real action happens in the last fifty pages, with all issues suddenly neatly tied up. The characters do have some depth, although Blake seems too good to be true, and Juliet needs a good shaking at times. 3.5 stars.
January 23, 2020
This explores an issue that is probably not an easy one to decide. I really enjoyed Juillet and Blake's story. For its not always easy to tell someone you are pregnant. So this story explores that issue makes you stop and think. To see both sides in away. Its well done and worth reading even for a book that is from 2004. J
March 17, 2019
I sure as hell would not be that forgiving!
June 24, 2015
Juliet has a wonderful (and challenging) job and a wonderful (and challenging) daughter. Sometimes the two don't mix very well. She's an attorney, and right now she's defending a man suspected of fraud - and one of the witnesses for the prosecution is none other than Blake, the father of her eight-year-old daughter Mary Jane. For the last nine years she's avoided Blake - not hard to do in a city the size of San Diego, especially considering he was living abroad for several of those years. But after her client commits suicide and leaves behind information that suggests Blake may have been involved in the fraudulent dealings, Juliet feels she has no choice but to take his case and try to prove him innocent. Spending so much time together reminds Blake and Juliet about the passion that raged between them on that one night nine years ago. But things aren't easy - Blake's petrified that he's going to end up spending years in prison, and Juliet's finding that her loyalties are split between the precocious Mary Jane, who's used to their man-free life, and Blake, who has no idea that he's a daddy.
I've been noticing a trend with the Tara Taylor Quinn books I've read lately. I really love the family settings, greatly enjoy the heroines, quite like (but am not especially attracted to) the heroes - and can totally take or leave the romance. Which is a bit odd, considering these are romance novels.
In this, as in a few other Quinn books I've read, the romance takes a distant second place to the plot, although it doesn't feel almost nonexistent as it did in A Child's Wish. While both hero and heroine seemed like nice people with a whole lot of attractive qualities, the attraction between the two felt a little flat. When they finally admitted their feelings for one another, it seemed to come out of nowhere.
However, the family portrayals are both touching and convincing. The relationship between Juliet and Mary Jane, in particular, felt very lifelike (and quite a lot like my childhood relationship with my own mother). I was a little surprised that Mary Jane was so dead-set against meeting her father, or having him even know about her (don't most kids want to meet their fathers, if they never have?) but I enjoyed the progression of their relationship after they finally did meet.
3 - 3.5 stars, I guess. A hard one to rate, since I enjoyed it a lot while reading but it didn't really stick with me.
I've been noticing a trend with the Tara Taylor Quinn books I've read lately. I really love the family settings, greatly enjoy the heroines, quite like (but am not especially attracted to) the heroes - and can totally take or leave the romance. Which is a bit odd, considering these are romance novels.
In this, as in a few other Quinn books I've read, the romance takes a distant second place to the plot, although it doesn't feel almost nonexistent as it did in A Child's Wish. While both hero and heroine seemed like nice people with a whole lot of attractive qualities, the attraction between the two felt a little flat. When they finally admitted their feelings for one another, it seemed to come out of nowhere.
However, the family portrayals are both touching and convincing. The relationship between Juliet and Mary Jane, in particular, felt very lifelike (and quite a lot like my childhood relationship with my own mother). I was a little surprised that Mary Jane was so dead-set against meeting her father, or having him even know about her (don't most kids want to meet their fathers, if they never have?) but I enjoyed the progression of their relationship after they finally did meet.
3 - 3.5 stars, I guess. A hard one to rate, since I enjoyed it a lot while reading but it didn't really stick with me.
July 26, 2015
Reading this book reminded me of why I love reading this author's books. Well developed plot including one stubborn little girl very much like the father she's never met and the mother who treats her as more grown up than her years. A must read for her fans and any one who loves an unusual kind of love story.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews