The Prodigal Valentine

Babies Inc. #3

by Karen Templeton

Which raised a whole host of questions for Mercy Zamora—because when hometown boyBen Vargas shot out of town ten years ago, healso left Mercy behind. And though she had ledthe chorus of no strings/no wedding bells/nobabies, ten years can change a girl. If only it hadchanged her feelings for him…

And as for Ben—he'd had his reasons for leaving,but Mercy had never been one of them. And sohe was home—at least for now. And he shouldknow better than to start something, once more,that he couldn't finish.

Know better than to think that once he had herin his arms, he'd ever be able to let her go…

Genres: Romance, Mills and Boon, Contemporary

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

As the mother of five sons, now grown, Karen loves to write about real people dealing with the drama (and humor) of everyday life. Over the past fifteen years, Karen has written nearly 50 books for Harlequin/Silhouette and Red Dress Ink, and three of her Special Edition titles (A Mother's Wish (2009) Welcome Home, Cowboy (2011) and A Gift for All Seasons (2013) have won the RITA award, the romance industry's top prize for published authors. In addition, her November 2014 title, Santa's Playbook, earned the Romantic Times Gold Seal of Excellence, out of the hundreds of releases reviewed by the magazine for that month.

She is very active on Facebook, as both Karen Templeton and her full name, Karen Templeton Berger, running giveaway contests whenever she has a new release... or just feels like it. Or you can reach her via her website at www.karentempleton.com, which contains recent news as well as excerpts from both current and backlist titles.

Reviews

[Summer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars. This one’s part of a series but easily reads as a standalone.

Not as much Valentine’s content as I would have liked, still there’s some sprinkled in, so at least the title wasn’t misleading as has been the case for me with plenty of Christmas books.

I mostly enjoyed this one, though I enjoyed it slightly less once Ben’s secret was revealed. I just didn’t see why it was something that needed to be a secret, and the affect it had on his relationship with Mercy seemed a bit overblown to me. I mean, I know there’s an element of danger involved, still it kind of felt like unnecessary drama, reading almost like a random wrench thrown in.

But like I said, there was plenty here that did work for me and this is worth reading for that. I did like Ben and Mercy’s chemistry, more than that though, I thought the family stuff was well done, the dad who favors one son to the detriment of both, Ben and Mercy’s interractions with their niece and nephew, and the marital troubles between their siblings, all that warmth and tension kept me engaged and entertained.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

SSE #1808

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great beginning! A bit too angsty for me but all-n-all another great read by a favorite author of mine.

[Tia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The heroine in this novel was fricken crazy. I can't even think of the proper term for her, she just didn't shut up. She kept going and going, despite opinions or anything else. She was one of the best heroines I've ever read about. I was iffy about the hero, he didn't seem strong enough to hold a woman like the heroine.

[Suzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Prodigal Valentine by Karen Templeton has a main character who is hyper and talks a mile a minute and goes jumping around and is just gosh darn fun. I liked that. She's got her mouth going out in front of her (like a lot of us in life).

I liked the book a lot.

[Susannah Carleton · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. A wonderful story of love, family, and second chances, with interesting characters readers will root for.