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Randolph Family Ties #4
A Mother's Secrets
A Mother's Secrets by Joanna Wayne released on Jul 25, 2000 is available now for purchase.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2000
37 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Wayne
187 books59 followersReal name: Jo Ann Vest
Pseudonyms: Joanna Wayne.
Joanna Wayne began her professional writing career with the release of her first novel, DEEP IN THE BAYOU, in 1994, but Joanna will be the first to tell you that the wheels were set in motion years before. She started reading at four years of age, the same age that she began making weekly trips to the library to check out as many books as they’d let her have, only to finish reading them all before bedtime. That love of books never waned.
Joanna was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana and was the middle child of a large family. She moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1984 when she married her current husband. New Orleans opened up a whole new realm of activities and she found the mix of cultures, music, history, food and sultry southern classics along with her love of reading a natural impetus for beginning her writing career. It was there that she attended her first writing class and joined her first professional writing organization. From that point on, there was no looking back.
Now, forty published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and mainstream novels. She is known for the suspense and emotion she brings to the page, as she takes ordinary people and thrusts them into life-and-death situations. She has been on the Walden Bestselling List for romance and won many industry awards. She is a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.
She currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star state.
Pseudonyms: Joanna Wayne.
Joanna Wayne began her professional writing career with the release of her first novel, DEEP IN THE BAYOU, in 1994, but Joanna will be the first to tell you that the wheels were set in motion years before. She started reading at four years of age, the same age that she began making weekly trips to the library to check out as many books as they’d let her have, only to finish reading them all before bedtime. That love of books never waned.
Joanna was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana and was the middle child of a large family. She moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1984 when she married her current husband. New Orleans opened up a whole new realm of activities and she found the mix of cultures, music, history, food and sultry southern classics along with her love of reading a natural impetus for beginning her writing career. It was there that she attended her first writing class and joined her first professional writing organization. From that point on, there was no looking back.
Now, forty published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and mainstream novels. She is known for the suspense and emotion she brings to the page, as she takes ordinary people and thrusts them into life-and-death situations. She has been on the Walden Bestselling List for romance and won many industry awards. She is a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.
She currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star state.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 11, 2024
2.5 rounded down stars. This took way too long to finish. And I skimmed a lot of it. The heroine was annoying. But the hero was pretty good. The baby was cute. And I did like the ending. But the beginning and middle were rough to get through.
April 17, 2018
September 15, 2000
The final Randolph brother meets his match in "A Mother's Secrets," Joanna Wayne's last Family Ties book. We learned in book three that Ryder Randolph is the father of the mystery baby who was dropped on the Randolph family doorstep. Now the mother is back, running from killers and trying to save Ryder from a murder rap she knows he isn't guilty of. Ryder can't understand this woman who abandoned him and their child. That can't stop him from wanting her. Can he save them both and dare to find a future for them?
"A Mother's Secrets" is an acceptable read, though a letdown after the other books in the series. It took me a while to write this review because I couldn't quite figure out why I didn't like this book more than I did. Then I figured it out. A pregnant young woman chased by danger runs from the man she loves. She later hatches a plan to leave her child with the father while she faces the risk on her own. The man no longer trusts her, and his brother Branson, the town sheriff, treats her with suspicion and disrespect. The hero finally understands the danger she's in, decides he has to trust her, and works with her to save her. That's the basic plot of "A Mother's Secrets," but it's also the basic outline of the first Randolph book, "Family Ties." The specific details are different, but this book still seems very familiar. It's annoying enough to see an author reuse plot elements. I had a hard time believing that such a similar set of events would happen twice in the same family. Both of Mary Randolph's grandchildren were secret babies born in the circumstances explained above. Isn't that a bit much for one family?
I was also bothered by the heroine. The heroine of the last book, "The Stranger Next Door," never really came to life for me, but it was okay because she had amnesia. She didn't know who she was, so it was understandable that I didn't either. Kathi had her memory, and I felt I knew her even less than I did Danielle. Perhaps it's because she only does one thing in this book: cry and say she has to go on the run again. We learn almost nothing about her family or who she is as a person; all I knew by the end was that she wanted to run. It wasn't enough for me to form any attachment. What are her likes and dislikes? We never know.
I was also bothered by the characters' inability to ask necessary questions until long after they should have been voiced. When Branson (back in jerk mode after a brief reprieve in his own story) finally questions Kathi, he neglects to ask some very obvious questions about her story that any logical person should have wanted to know. In the end the author does wrap up all the loose ends that nagged me all through the book. It still took too long to satisfy me.
I know there are those who will disagree with me. The Romantic Times made this book a Top Pick. Then again, they also gave a mediocre rating to the original "Family Ties," a book I still think is Wayne's best. "A Mother's Secrets" is a must-read for those who have been following the Randolph saga. But if the original "Family Ties" was the best book and "The Second Son" was the second best, for me "A Mother's Secrets" definitely comes in a distant fourth out of four.
The final Randolph brother meets his match in "A Mother's Secrets," Joanna Wayne's last Family Ties book. We learned in book three that Ryder Randolph is the father of the mystery baby who was dropped on the Randolph family doorstep. Now the mother is back, running from killers and trying to save Ryder from a murder rap she knows he isn't guilty of. Ryder can't understand this woman who abandoned him and their child. That can't stop him from wanting her. Can he save them both and dare to find a future for them?
"A Mother's Secrets" is an acceptable read, though a letdown after the other books in the series. It took me a while to write this review because I couldn't quite figure out why I didn't like this book more than I did. Then I figured it out. A pregnant young woman chased by danger runs from the man she loves. She later hatches a plan to leave her child with the father while she faces the risk on her own. The man no longer trusts her, and his brother Branson, the town sheriff, treats her with suspicion and disrespect. The hero finally understands the danger she's in, decides he has to trust her, and works with her to save her. That's the basic plot of "A Mother's Secrets," but it's also the basic outline of the first Randolph book, "Family Ties." The specific details are different, but this book still seems very familiar. It's annoying enough to see an author reuse plot elements. I had a hard time believing that such a similar set of events would happen twice in the same family. Both of Mary Randolph's grandchildren were secret babies born in the circumstances explained above. Isn't that a bit much for one family?
I was also bothered by the heroine. The heroine of the last book, "The Stranger Next Door," never really came to life for me, but it was okay because she had amnesia. She didn't know who she was, so it was understandable that I didn't either. Kathi had her memory, and I felt I knew her even less than I did Danielle. Perhaps it's because she only does one thing in this book: cry and say she has to go on the run again. We learn almost nothing about her family or who she is as a person; all I knew by the end was that she wanted to run. It wasn't enough for me to form any attachment. What are her likes and dislikes? We never know.
I was also bothered by the characters' inability to ask necessary questions until long after they should have been voiced. When Branson (back in jerk mode after a brief reprieve in his own story) finally questions Kathi, he neglects to ask some very obvious questions about her story that any logical person should have wanted to know. In the end the author does wrap up all the loose ends that nagged me all through the book. It still took too long to satisfy me.
I know there are those who will disagree with me. The Romantic Times made this book a Top Pick. Then again, they also gave a mediocre rating to the original "Family Ties," a book I still think is Wayne's best. "A Mother's Secrets" is a must-read for those who have been following the Randolph saga. But if the original "Family Ties" was the best book and "The Second Son" was the second best, for me "A Mother's Secrets" definitely comes in a distant fourth out of four.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews