The Real Father

by Kathleen O'Brien

TWINS --- THEY'RE DEFINITELY NOT TWO OF A KIND ...

Ten years ago, Molly Lorring left Demery, South Carolina, with a secret. She was pregnant with Beau Forrest's baby, but no one could ever know. Because Beau was dead --- unaware that he'd even made his longtime girlfriend pregnant before dying in a spectacular car crash.

For all that time, Beau's identical twin, Jackson, has carried his own secret. Beau isn't the father of Molly's baby ...

Genres: Family, Contemporary

298 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 2000

About the author

Since the day Harlequin bought her first novel, Kathleen has published more than 30 titles with them- everything from hot, sexy contemporaries to dark, brooding suspense. Read in more than 30 countries and 29 languages, she's a five-time finalist for the prestigious RWA RITA Award, a winner of the Maggie Award, and a three-time finalist for Romantic Times' Reviewer's Choice.

Kathleen comes from a family of writers, poets, and journalists- though she may be the one shameless romantic in the bunch. A true Cancer, she values home and family above everything and wouldn't dream of ditching a single friend, memory, gift, or love letter. Consequently, her office is a mess, full of books, colored cut glass, photo albums, Madame Alexander dolls, and a cockatiel who whistles the theme from "The X Files." She is addicted to Mozart and Elvis, Dancing With the Stars, Dorothy Dunnett novels, and sugar-free Popsicles.

Reviews

[Vintage · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should have been called The Sins of the Twins.

I really regret reading this. It's a convoluted, tawdry mess and proof that young teen age girls and boys are incredibly stupid in their own incredibly stupid ways.

Ten years ago the h was in love with a manipulative Richie Rich BMOC (big-man -on-campus for those that are acronymly challenged), while his twin was her platonic and pining best friend although known as a hell raiser in town. BMOC was the good twin while BF was the bad one, or were they? Afraid of sex, the h puts off BMOC until he plays her one last time saying she needs to find someone else. Desperate to hang on to her boyfriend she runs to him and clumsily tries to seduce him. That's always fun to read as a woman, that a young woman has been manipulated into sex. Joke was on the BMOC though. No spoilers, but she had sex with the good twin. Later the evil twin dies in a car crash.

Present day, the h is back in town with her 9 yo daughter and encounters the H and others. The flashy piece from High School has a young son that looks just like the H, and the h and everyone assumes the boy is his. No, it's not. It's the POS dead twin's. He used to pretend to be the good twin so he could have sex with the bad girl who was smart enough to figure out which twin she was sleeping with. Unlike the h who is dumber than dirt, doesn't knows she had sex with the nice one, and idolizes the POS twin from beyond the crypt.

I don't believe women should bleed families dry because they have children, but neither girl, both single teen mothers, bothered to tell the wealthy and connected family that the born some their spawn. You might think that a grieving mother, aunt, brother (don't recall a father) might want to know about the next generation of the golden boy.

So, we have two plot moppets that have been deprived of fathers or at least their heritage. Plus two girls that were duped for different reasons by twin brothers: one for sex and the other into having sex because he loved the heroine. The hero goes to look for the love of his life, but doesn't know about the baby supposedly. However, when he sees them again he doesn't say anything for ever.

I am tempted to give it one star, but I know there are some poor souls that like this kind of angst caca. Plus the interaction between the cousins, the son of the bad girl and the daughter of the h, and the fantasy world is kind of sweet. A little bit like Terabithia without the dead kids.

[Sruthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those very twisted and complicated story with awful lot of characters and I am not patient enough to explain them anyway .

One thing I would like to mention ... Gosh there was a lot of dead twin , I really got tired of reading about him, h imagining him to be the perfect saint when he was a real cheating jerk. I really don't understand why the author gave him such importance, in fact there was more about him than H. But if you can ignore it there are many good things about this book.

I don't really like two brothers with the same woman but this is not the case , she just loved the wrong twin and has been dating him for a while but even then she was subconsciously more dependent on H, And then when she gave her innocence it was H there, the very next day H and the wrong twin are in a accident and the bad guy dies while H is full of guilt. So h was not really with the two of them so that kind of made this book bearable .

In a nut shell -
Twin brothers , Good one taking all the blame every time, Bad one gets lucky every time. H in love with h who in turn is in love with the bad twin. Bad twin two-timing h pretending to be H with another innocent girl . Two girls end up pregnant . Cut it and then ten yrs leap.
It gets even more confusing after the leap . Also, We get to read really cute and funny conversations between two ten-yr olds and that made this book special . I gave it extra star only for the kids .

I would have given 5 stars if they have shown real bonding btw that little girl and H. He knew from the very beginning that she was his daughter but he acted distant and let the h think that she was his brother's child < That kinda sounds gross ...ewww > . But I felt really bad for the little girl , she had been dreaming H being the willowswing King , h the willowswing Queen and she,the willowswing princess... all in her imaginary made up world. She was pretending all the time that H was her real father .

[Saly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Real Father is a good book and not a great one. Beau and Jackson are twins, rich and spoiled. Jackson was the wild-one, always getting into trouble and not seeming to care but Beau he was more smarter, he presented a perfect "saintly" image to everyone but it was only Jackson who knew his true side(spoiled, mean, playboy). Things went south when Jackson tried to stop an enraged Beau and they both ended up in an accident, with Beau dead and Jackson in the hospital.
Molly's father was abusive and home life terrible and a secret so like all little girls she created a hero for herself, someone around whom her life revolved and that person was Beau. She returns to town 10 years later with her daughter in tow with a landscaping project commissioned by Beau's aunt for Beau. Many people including me will find Molly's constant harping about Beau irritating, I mean come on its been 10 years but as I saw deeper it is easy to understand why. Molly though she was an independent business-woman, was in many ways still that teenager who marveled at that fact that Beau was interested in her, he provided her an out from her home life and people do tend to over-blow people's memories once they are dead and in my opinion Molly was too young, in-experienced and infatuated to see through Beau, however I believe if they had more time together, her blinkers would have been removed. As the synopsis mentions, Beau is not the father of her child Jackson is. Molly was younger than Beau and despite Beau's physical demands was determined not to give in(her mother had to marry her father because of being pregnant), but once Beau threatens to leave her she conducts a drunken seduction of who she assumes to be Beau(Jackson, really who is drunk). Jackson had a lot of baggage related to his brother, there was guilt that he survived while he didn't and there was also anger over how foolish people could be and their image about Beau. He had loved and kind of wanted Molly all his life and what he did is something he still feels guilty about. He isn't the aggressor in the relationship.
Yes as I said before, I found Molly's attempts to link everything to Beau tedious but he had been the only guy in her life(and she thought her daughter's father), and she does slowly come to realize on her own that Beau wasn't all that she had made him out to be and she comes to the realization that it was Jackson who made her relationship work(Jackson kept the promises). The book focused more upon Lisa(her daughter), Molly's work than Jackson and Molly. There was also a sub-plot involving Beau's former coach, Annie(Beau's kind of girlfriend) and her son Tommy. The kid interactions were good to see. I liked how Jackson flat out said that he was not Beau and not willing to be second-best and also how it was Molly who actually did the chasing, they talked like mature adults. The thing that kind of bothered me was that Jackson never voiced the fact that he was Lisa's father till the very end.
It was a nice read.
Rating 3.5

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

The h was a self delusional twit who lucked out enough to have an amazing daughter and the H was another self delusional idiot who crushed on his brother's girl friend to the point of obsession! I have read over 270 odd pages so far with the story going nowhere, the h and H not growing together in love. They barely even have chemistry except for the delusional twit deluding herself that H looks just like her dead ex! I am giving up on this book and moving on. I would have given it 1 star but the plot had so much potential that with some good editing, a faster pace and with some serious backbone into the characters it could be a great book.

[Mareli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a very sweet romance with wonderful kids!