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Bound by a Baby
Can a baby bring them together?
Becoming guardian to her orphaned godson is a heartbreaking honor for Emmy Jacobs. The real challenge will be sharing that honor with godfather Dylan Harper! Having got off on the wrong foot with him, Emmy must now somehow get along with the brooding—and gorgeous—Dylan….
Dylan has never wanted a family. His own childhood was bad enough, so how can he ever be a father? But he promised his best friend he'd be there and he's going to be. Caring for baby Tyler with a beautiful but emotional woman will test him to the limit. However, watching Emmy with Tyler shows Dylan a new side to her—and a new side to himself….
Becoming guardian to her orphaned godson is a heartbreaking honor for Emmy Jacobs. The real challenge will be sharing that honor with godfather Dylan Harper! Having got off on the wrong foot with him, Emmy must now somehow get along with the brooding—and gorgeous—Dylan….
Dylan has never wanted a family. His own childhood was bad enough, so how can he ever be a father? But he promised his best friend he'd be there and he's going to be. Caring for baby Tyler with a beautiful but emotional woman will test him to the limit. However, watching Emmy with Tyler shows Dylan a new side to her—and a new side to himself….
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 2013
About the author
Kate Hardy
842 books267 followersKate Hardy is the award-winning author of more than 100 books for Harlequin Mills & Boon and the Georgina Drake cozy crime series for Storm. Her novel 'Breakfast at Giovanni's' won the RNA Romance Prize in 2008, 'Bound by a Baby' won the RNA RoNA Rose in 2014 and ‘A Will, A Wish, A Wedding’ won the RNA Liberta Books Shorter Fiction award in 2021. She's been shortlisted six more times for the award, as well as for two Romantic Times awards.
She lives in Norwich in the east of England with her husband, two grown-up children, springer spaniels Archie and Dexter, and too many books to count. She's a bit of a nerd who loves cinema, live music, the theatre, ballet, history and cooking, and adores anything Italian. She loves doing research, particularly if it's hands-on and means experimenting with cooking. Reviewers say that her books are full of warmth, heart and charm - and also that you'll learn something new and interesting from them!
Kate also writes bestselling local history books under the name of Pamela Brooks.
She lives in Norwich in the east of England with her husband, two grown-up children, springer spaniels Archie and Dexter, and too many books to count. She's a bit of a nerd who loves cinema, live music, the theatre, ballet, history and cooking, and adores anything Italian. She loves doing research, particularly if it's hands-on and means experimenting with cooking. Reviewers say that her books are full of warmth, heart and charm - and also that you'll learn something new and interesting from them!
Kate also writes bestselling local history books under the name of Pamela Brooks.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 24, 2018
This was a great romantic love story between adults as well as adults and a precious baby.
Emmy's best friend and her husband have been killed in an accident and Emmy is now the legal guardian of their baby.
Dylan was the best friend of the baby's father. He is also named as legal guardian for little Tyler. Dylan is divorcing his wife because she decided she wants a family and Dylan does not. Their deal before marriage: no kids. Now he is thrown into a parental role that he never ever wanted because of how badly he was treated as a child.
Watch the sparks fly between these two frenemies as they choose to raise this child together.
Great Book that I highly Recommend. I only wish it had an epilogue.
Emmy's best friend and her husband have been killed in an accident and Emmy is now the legal guardian of their baby.
Dylan was the best friend of the baby's father. He is also named as legal guardian for little Tyler. Dylan is divorcing his wife because she decided she wants a family and Dylan does not. Their deal before marriage: no kids. Now he is thrown into a parental role that he never ever wanted because of how badly he was treated as a child.
Watch the sparks fly between these two frenemies as they choose to raise this child together.
Great Book that I highly Recommend. I only wish it had an epilogue.
February 4, 2014
BOUND BY A BABY by author Kate Hardy is a January 2014 release by Mills & Boon Cherish.
Dylan Harper got gob smacked when he had to co-parent his young orphaned godson with the baby’s godmother, Emmy Jacobs. Dylan was against having a baby, so much so his marriage broke down.
Emmy took her responsibility very seriously. But Dylan was a distraction she could do without. To her everyday life and also to her libido! Would co-parenting the orphaned Taylor bring these two opposite thinking people together?
BOUND BY A BABY moved me to tears many times. It is a full on emotional drama. Author Kate Hardy brought this tale shimmering with emotions.
Highly recommended for all lovers of romance.
Dylan Harper got gob smacked when he had to co-parent his young orphaned godson with the baby’s godmother, Emmy Jacobs. Dylan was against having a baby, so much so his marriage broke down.
Emmy took her responsibility very seriously. But Dylan was a distraction she could do without. To her everyday life and also to her libido! Would co-parenting the orphaned Taylor bring these two opposite thinking people together?
BOUND BY A BABY moved me to tears many times. It is a full on emotional drama. Author Kate Hardy brought this tale shimmering with emotions.
Highly recommended for all lovers of romance.
March 21, 2014
If you love opposite attract romance and having your heart strings pulled, you will adore this book. It is an utterly delightful book. Kate Hardy is my good to author when I want heart warming escapist reading and she certainly doesn't disappoint with this tale of two very different people forced to get on for the sake of a baby.
September 20, 2013
If you ever wanted to read a short book on how to look after a baby the this book is for you. Unfortunately the characters lacked chemistry and the whole thing was very sedentary.
October 29, 2014
DE-lightful. Devoured this little Kate Hardy treat. And now I want to go to Paris for lunch....Sigh....a girl can dream!
May 14, 2019
This was a pretty repetitive book. Characters said and did the same thing many times.
The romance was like, the main couple kissed even though they believe they shouldn't, then said, "Oh, no. We can't do this. It won't be good for the baby," then, another kiss followed by another "We should stay away from each other," and they repeated it yet again.
And the hero kept saying that although he hadn't wanted a family, now that he had some kind of family, he liked it, over and over and over. Seriously, hearing it a few times is enough. I don't think most readers have forgotten how he feels about his current situation or his change of heart during the short time between when he said it last and when he mentions it again.
It felt like the author had started to write a novella, but then, decided to turn it into a book and stretched the short story; instead of adding more plot points and making the story deserving to be book-length, she added only some fluff and reused the same things again and again to fill the pages.
Or she just thought romance readers have a very short memory. It's either this or that.
Anyway, the hero also brought up how his mother had been a bad mother at every chance he got. Rather than making me feel sorry for him, it only made him look like a big whiner, always blaming others for his situation so that he didn't have to grow up and take responsibility for his own life.
His past actually deserves sympathy, and I would've cut him some slack if he were a teenager or at least in his twenties. But he was in his mid-thirties for crying out loud.
It didn't help that the author, instead of letting him properly grow up, tried to excuse his lack of social skills, his arrogant behavior, using his past. Around the middle, the heroine said, "He still has the social skills of a rhino, but I think that's because nobody taught him, not because he's too arrogant to care."
But he was obviously old enough to teach himself. I would've understood if he'd been socially awkward instead of being rude and arrogant. Social awkwardness is harder to get over because those people don't choose or want to act that way. Many of them try to act better, but still can't help themselves.
Rudeness was different. You can learn to act politely, at least more easily than getting rid of social awkwardness. Most, if not all, people who act in an arrogant way choose not to be polite.
In addition to that, it wasn't like the hero had never met a person who cared about him, who had enough patience to build a proper relationship with him, whom he could trust, right? He himself said he and his best friend, the baby's actual father, had been like brothers. It also seemed like his grandmother, who'd practically raised him, was a fine person and the hero liked her.
Which means that he had had enough chance to learn social skills, how to be polite. Then, it's due to his personality, not his past, if he behaved rudely and appeared to lack social skills.
Besides, if he really doesn't know how to act politely and ends up being rude without meaning to, how could he have been so successful at work? Becoming successful usually requires some social skills. If he somehow managed interacting with his co-workers and clients well enough, but was so poor at social interactions in private, it just means that he didn't care about people he met in private. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he saw them as not worthy of the effort to be polite and chose to behave poorly.
So, contrary to the heroine's belief, if his social skills seemed low, it’s exactly "because he's too arrogant to care."
Not that it looked like he seriously lacked social skills. Although he regularly whined, which showed his immaturity, and was judgmental, he seemed to interact with people fine (though it didn't improve his image in my eyes). He hardly looked like the man the heroine had believed to be at first.
Which leads to another problem I had with this book.
The complete change in the heroine and the hero's relationship in the beginning was simply unbelievable. They had known each other for a while and hated each other’s gut, but then, a baby, or taking care of him together, suddenly made them like each other? No way.
The shared responsibility and mutual grief could make them more tolerant of each other, sure. But it's just too far-fetched that they instantly got along well and had no problem while sharing a house and looking after the baby together.
It would've been better if the author had included a couple of fights between them in the beginning, and shown us how they gradually progressed from there, finding a way to cooperate, and started liking each other little by little in the process.
Or she could've shown us their first encounter or an incident which made both of them decide they really disliked the other and convinced us why they misjudged each other's character even though they were actually not so incompatible. If we could see how the misunderstanding on the both parts happened, it might’ve been more believable that they became close so quickly. Sure, the characters offered some reasons for hating the other in the beginning, but they weren't convincing enough.
If you didn't want to show us how the heroine and the hero didn't get along well, skipped that part where they hated each other, and just started with the part where they were friendly, or at least civil, to each other, why would you make the characters declare they disliked each other to begin with? Why didn't the author just make the main couple two people who had mutual friends but didn't know each other well and felt like strangers, or something like that? The story would've been exactly the same, I'm sure.
If you insist they really disliked each other before they became "bound by a baby," you have to explore that mutual dislike at least a little. That's what a proper book/author would do anyway.
The only way to make sense of their mutual dislike is to assume that not just the hero, but also the heroine, was quite judgmental, putting labels on others when they don't really know the person and then, going on to hate them and become rude to them even.
And it seems to be the case. The heroine seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that the hero’s marriage had fallen apart because he’d had an affair, just because that was how her parents' marriage had ended. I understand that she can't help having a suspicion. But acting like her suspicion can't be false when she knows nothing about his marriage and then, even accuse him of cheating on his wife? It was an entirely different thing, and really rude.
She was sure as judgmental as the hero, except it wasn't as obvious and no one pointed it out in the book contrary to the hero's case.
Well, that makes them a good match, I guess.
The heroine also seemed self-centered, at least when it came to romance. When she mentioned her past relationships that had miserably failed, it was always her boyfriends’ fault. And the only thing she talked about was how unfairly her exes treated her. It didn’t seem like she had ever stopped to consider how she treated them, whether she was fair and good to them. Maybe she just didn't care about such a thing.
It actually reminded me of the way the hero complained about his soon-to-be-ex-wife. So, the heroine and the hero were really alike, it seems.
Speaking of the hero's comments about his ex-wife, they were also repeated many times in the beginning, which annoyed me. Well, at least he started admitting that he had not been really good to her in the middle. I give him that.
Though it still didn't make me like him. I actually disliked him for having the audacity to claim he had actually loved her after admitting that he'd never really let her get close to him emotionally and that he had run away when she was crying instead of comforting her.
Yeah, sure. Keeping someone at an arm's length and leaving her alone in tears are exactly what you'll do when you love someone.
Despite the author's clear effort to make readers feel sorry for both the heroine and the hero, the only person I felt sorry for in this book was the hero's ex-wife. It must have been tough to be married to such a jerk. I hope she will find a much, much better man soon and have the family she wants.
The romance was like, the main couple kissed even though they believe they shouldn't, then said, "Oh, no. We can't do this. It won't be good for the baby," then, another kiss followed by another "We should stay away from each other," and they repeated it yet again.
And the hero kept saying that although he hadn't wanted a family, now that he had some kind of family, he liked it, over and over and over. Seriously, hearing it a few times is enough. I don't think most readers have forgotten how he feels about his current situation or his change of heart during the short time between when he said it last and when he mentions it again.
It felt like the author had started to write a novella, but then, decided to turn it into a book and stretched the short story; instead of adding more plot points and making the story deserving to be book-length, she added only some fluff and reused the same things again and again to fill the pages.
Or she just thought romance readers have a very short memory. It's either this or that.
Anyway, the hero also brought up how his mother had been a bad mother at every chance he got. Rather than making me feel sorry for him, it only made him look like a big whiner, always blaming others for his situation so that he didn't have to grow up and take responsibility for his own life.
His past actually deserves sympathy, and I would've cut him some slack if he were a teenager or at least in his twenties. But he was in his mid-thirties for crying out loud.
It didn't help that the author, instead of letting him properly grow up, tried to excuse his lack of social skills, his arrogant behavior, using his past. Around the middle, the heroine said, "He still has the social skills of a rhino, but I think that's because nobody taught him, not because he's too arrogant to care."
But he was obviously old enough to teach himself. I would've understood if he'd been socially awkward instead of being rude and arrogant. Social awkwardness is harder to get over because those people don't choose or want to act that way. Many of them try to act better, but still can't help themselves.
Rudeness was different. You can learn to act politely, at least more easily than getting rid of social awkwardness. Most, if not all, people who act in an arrogant way choose not to be polite.
In addition to that, it wasn't like the hero had never met a person who cared about him, who had enough patience to build a proper relationship with him, whom he could trust, right? He himself said he and his best friend, the baby's actual father, had been like brothers. It also seemed like his grandmother, who'd practically raised him, was a fine person and the hero liked her.
Which means that he had had enough chance to learn social skills, how to be polite. Then, it's due to his personality, not his past, if he behaved rudely and appeared to lack social skills.
Besides, if he really doesn't know how to act politely and ends up being rude without meaning to, how could he have been so successful at work? Becoming successful usually requires some social skills. If he somehow managed interacting with his co-workers and clients well enough, but was so poor at social interactions in private, it just means that he didn't care about people he met in private. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he saw them as not worthy of the effort to be polite and chose to behave poorly.
So, contrary to the heroine's belief, if his social skills seemed low, it’s exactly "because he's too arrogant to care."
Not that it looked like he seriously lacked social skills. Although he regularly whined, which showed his immaturity, and was judgmental, he seemed to interact with people fine (though it didn't improve his image in my eyes). He hardly looked like the man the heroine had believed to be at first.
Which leads to another problem I had with this book.
The complete change in the heroine and the hero's relationship in the beginning was simply unbelievable. They had known each other for a while and hated each other’s gut, but then, a baby, or taking care of him together, suddenly made them like each other? No way.
The shared responsibility and mutual grief could make them more tolerant of each other, sure. But it's just too far-fetched that they instantly got along well and had no problem while sharing a house and looking after the baby together.
It would've been better if the author had included a couple of fights between them in the beginning, and shown us how they gradually progressed from there, finding a way to cooperate, and started liking each other little by little in the process.
Or she could've shown us their first encounter or an incident which made both of them decide they really disliked the other and convinced us why they misjudged each other's character even though they were actually not so incompatible. If we could see how the misunderstanding on the both parts happened, it might’ve been more believable that they became close so quickly. Sure, the characters offered some reasons for hating the other in the beginning, but they weren't convincing enough.
If you didn't want to show us how the heroine and the hero didn't get along well, skipped that part where they hated each other, and just started with the part where they were friendly, or at least civil, to each other, why would you make the characters declare they disliked each other to begin with? Why didn't the author just make the main couple two people who had mutual friends but didn't know each other well and felt like strangers, or something like that? The story would've been exactly the same, I'm sure.
If you insist they really disliked each other before they became "bound by a baby," you have to explore that mutual dislike at least a little. That's what a proper book/author would do anyway.
The only way to make sense of their mutual dislike is to assume that not just the hero, but also the heroine, was quite judgmental, putting labels on others when they don't really know the person and then, going on to hate them and become rude to them even.
And it seems to be the case. The heroine seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that the hero’s marriage had fallen apart because he’d had an affair, just because that was how her parents' marriage had ended. I understand that she can't help having a suspicion. But acting like her suspicion can't be false when she knows nothing about his marriage and then, even accuse him of cheating on his wife? It was an entirely different thing, and really rude.
She was sure as judgmental as the hero, except it wasn't as obvious and no one pointed it out in the book contrary to the hero's case.
Well, that makes them a good match, I guess.
The heroine also seemed self-centered, at least when it came to romance. When she mentioned her past relationships that had miserably failed, it was always her boyfriends’ fault. And the only thing she talked about was how unfairly her exes treated her. It didn’t seem like she had ever stopped to consider how she treated them, whether she was fair and good to them. Maybe she just didn't care about such a thing.
It actually reminded me of the way the hero complained about his soon-to-be-ex-wife. So, the heroine and the hero were really alike, it seems.
Speaking of the hero's comments about his ex-wife, they were also repeated many times in the beginning, which annoyed me. Well, at least he started admitting that he had not been really good to her in the middle. I give him that.
Though it still didn't make me like him. I actually disliked him for having the audacity to claim he had actually loved her after admitting that he'd never really let her get close to him emotionally and that he had run away when she was crying instead of comforting her.
Yeah, sure. Keeping someone at an arm's length and leaving her alone in tears are exactly what you'll do when you love someone.
Despite the author's clear effort to make readers feel sorry for both the heroine and the hero, the only person I felt sorry for in this book was the hero's ex-wife. It must have been tough to be married to such a jerk. I hope she will find a much, much better man soon and have the family she wants.
November 1, 2022
A Nice Novel about Baby Sitting a Cute Baby.
April 22, 2014
This year’s winner of the RONA Rose Award for category romance, Bound by a Baby is a stirring and emotional story about unexpected twists of fate, the healing of old scars and the redemptive power of love guaranteed to have you reaching for the tissues.
The bottom had fallen out of jewelry designer Emmy Jacobs’ world when her best friend Ally had died in a tragic accident. Ally had been more like a sister than a friend – she’d been the first person she called in times of crises and,after another one of her feckless boyfriends had dumped her, Ally had been the one to mop up the tears and top up her glass of wine. Emmy just cannot bear the thought of living life without her best friend by her side, yet she knows that she mustn’t let herself be overwhelmed by grief – especially as she’s got Ally’s orphaned baby, Tyler, to think about. Emmy vows to give Tyler the best possible start in life, but little does she realise that she doesn’t have to raise her best friend’s gorgeous baby boy by herself…
Dylan Harper’s life revolves around his business. A workaholic who works very long hours, Dylan has never wanted children nor has he ever envisaged prioritizing anything other than his career. His obsession with his job and his reluctance to become a father had cost him his marriage to Nadine, who had walked out on him when she realised that Dylan wasn’t prepared to give her the baby she longed for with all her heart. Single again and with no emotional ties or commitments bringing him down, Dylan is now free to concentrate on his career once again. However, his best laid plans quickly begin to unravel when he is informed that his best friend Pete died whilst on holiday in Italy with his wife Ally – and that he’s been left co-guardian of their baby Tyler, alongside with the one woman he simply cannot stand: Emmy Jacobs!
Dylan thinks that Emmy is a dizzy and immature airhead who lurches from one romantic disaster to the next. Baby Tyler has already had plenty of upheaval in his life – he certainly doesn’t need flighty Emmy to cause any further disruption. Thinking that Emmy can be easily bought off and persuaded to hand over Tyler’s care to him, Dylan is surprised by her tenacity, her stubbornness and her unwillingness to rescind the responsibility which Ally and Pete’s death has placed upon on her shoulders.
Forced to put their feelings aside for the sake of baby Tyler, Emmy and Dylan move into the same house and begin to get used to being part of a ready-made family. Thrown together by fate and united by a sizzling attraction that cannot be denied, Emmy and Dylan soon find themselves getting closer. But torn between duty and desire, will Emmy and Dylan take a chance on love? Or is their relationship destined to be a merely convenient and practical arrangement?
Bound by a Baby is a wonderfully written, highly compelling and absolutely irresistible contemporary romance that will touch your heart and make you cry. Multi award-winning author Kate Hardy is as superb as ever and she writes with great deftness, sensitivity and compassion about the loss of a loved one, the devastating effect of grief and how the unexpected death of someone close to you can turn your life upside down. But Bound by a Baby is not a sad book. It’s an uplifting, poignant and captivating love story with two wonderfully rendered and believable characters that simply leap off the pages.
Emmy was a terrific heroine. Smart, intelligent and tenacious, she’s the kind of character you’d love to have as a friend in real life fighting your corner and brooding Dylan was another of Kate Hardy’s swoon-worthy heroes. I am sure readers everywhere will fall madly in love with him!
A superb romantic read that ticks all the right boxes, it’s not hard to see why Bound by a Baby won the talented Kate Hardy a second RONA Rose Award!
This review was originally published on Cataromance.
The bottom had fallen out of jewelry designer Emmy Jacobs’ world when her best friend Ally had died in a tragic accident. Ally had been more like a sister than a friend – she’d been the first person she called in times of crises and,after another one of her feckless boyfriends had dumped her, Ally had been the one to mop up the tears and top up her glass of wine. Emmy just cannot bear the thought of living life without her best friend by her side, yet she knows that she mustn’t let herself be overwhelmed by grief – especially as she’s got Ally’s orphaned baby, Tyler, to think about. Emmy vows to give Tyler the best possible start in life, but little does she realise that she doesn’t have to raise her best friend’s gorgeous baby boy by herself…
Dylan Harper’s life revolves around his business. A workaholic who works very long hours, Dylan has never wanted children nor has he ever envisaged prioritizing anything other than his career. His obsession with his job and his reluctance to become a father had cost him his marriage to Nadine, who had walked out on him when she realised that Dylan wasn’t prepared to give her the baby she longed for with all her heart. Single again and with no emotional ties or commitments bringing him down, Dylan is now free to concentrate on his career once again. However, his best laid plans quickly begin to unravel when he is informed that his best friend Pete died whilst on holiday in Italy with his wife Ally – and that he’s been left co-guardian of their baby Tyler, alongside with the one woman he simply cannot stand: Emmy Jacobs!
Dylan thinks that Emmy is a dizzy and immature airhead who lurches from one romantic disaster to the next. Baby Tyler has already had plenty of upheaval in his life – he certainly doesn’t need flighty Emmy to cause any further disruption. Thinking that Emmy can be easily bought off and persuaded to hand over Tyler’s care to him, Dylan is surprised by her tenacity, her stubbornness and her unwillingness to rescind the responsibility which Ally and Pete’s death has placed upon on her shoulders.
Forced to put their feelings aside for the sake of baby Tyler, Emmy and Dylan move into the same house and begin to get used to being part of a ready-made family. Thrown together by fate and united by a sizzling attraction that cannot be denied, Emmy and Dylan soon find themselves getting closer. But torn between duty and desire, will Emmy and Dylan take a chance on love? Or is their relationship destined to be a merely convenient and practical arrangement?
Bound by a Baby is a wonderfully written, highly compelling and absolutely irresistible contemporary romance that will touch your heart and make you cry. Multi award-winning author Kate Hardy is as superb as ever and she writes with great deftness, sensitivity and compassion about the loss of a loved one, the devastating effect of grief and how the unexpected death of someone close to you can turn your life upside down. But Bound by a Baby is not a sad book. It’s an uplifting, poignant and captivating love story with two wonderfully rendered and believable characters that simply leap off the pages.
Emmy was a terrific heroine. Smart, intelligent and tenacious, she’s the kind of character you’d love to have as a friend in real life fighting your corner and brooding Dylan was another of Kate Hardy’s swoon-worthy heroes. I am sure readers everywhere will fall madly in love with him!
A superb romantic read that ticks all the right boxes, it’s not hard to see why Bound by a Baby won the talented Kate Hardy a second RONA Rose Award!
This review was originally published on Cataromance.
July 21, 2016
Becoming a mother or father is never easy, your entire life changes and never gets back to normal. For most couples this is no problem as having a child is of course what they want.
But if your not ready for it, or even wanting it at all, right there is where it gets ticker than trying to figure out how to change a diaper if you have never done it before!
In this read from Kate Hardy she tells of how always seeing the good in everything Emmy and workaholic Dylan become parents to Tyler after the death of his parents.
Of course these two not being in a relationship makes it super interesting, as all parents know it is a romantic, love filled working together effort to raise a child. But what makes it even more interesting is Emmy and Dylan don't like each other at all!
And soon the sparks of indifference start to fly. Changing diapers, getting up all hours of the night and avoiding baby spit is the last of this explosive godparent-couple's worries.
I really, really loved this read. It was so sweet and heartwarming, and it hit all the aw sweet notes for me. I really loved Emmy to bits. Her always seeing the good in everything around her was brilliant, it was as if I was seeing everything the author was describing through Emmy's eyes, in a whole other light then what I usually look at things.
Dylan was super sweet, yes a bit of a jerk with the whole "I never want kids" attitude but of course with the childhood he had I could understand his insecurities. What really made me fall for this hero was his willingness to learn to take care of Tyler. No mater how much he disliked Emmy he still always kept the best interest of Tyler at heart and this made him the perfect make my knees go weak hero.
I particularity liked that the author let the story slowly build into a full out romance read. Some reads tend to build the don't like each other, to friend to more relationship pace too quickly and I feel as if I'm left with only half a story and as if I was cheated, and instead of a full romance read I ended up with five chapters missing.
It' s fine when done in other types of read, as it all depends on the how quick the reader needs the read to be but in certain cases a book can be over ten chapters long and it still moves too fast and ruins the entire read, so a big thank you to Kate Hardy for taking the time to really WRITE this book!
I'm taking away a message of life is seen through the eyes of each person differently, you might not agree with how they see things but if you stop for long enough to try and see it the way they see it, you might just discover more about yourself and lean that you are more than capable of handling anything that comes your way.
5/5 star review
" She sees the real him. He sees his life spiraling out of control"
But if your not ready for it, or even wanting it at all, right there is where it gets ticker than trying to figure out how to change a diaper if you have never done it before!
In this read from Kate Hardy she tells of how always seeing the good in everything Emmy and workaholic Dylan become parents to Tyler after the death of his parents.
Of course these two not being in a relationship makes it super interesting, as all parents know it is a romantic, love filled working together effort to raise a child. But what makes it even more interesting is Emmy and Dylan don't like each other at all!
And soon the sparks of indifference start to fly. Changing diapers, getting up all hours of the night and avoiding baby spit is the last of this explosive godparent-couple's worries.
I really, really loved this read. It was so sweet and heartwarming, and it hit all the aw sweet notes for me. I really loved Emmy to bits. Her always seeing the good in everything around her was brilliant, it was as if I was seeing everything the author was describing through Emmy's eyes, in a whole other light then what I usually look at things.
Dylan was super sweet, yes a bit of a jerk with the whole "I never want kids" attitude but of course with the childhood he had I could understand his insecurities. What really made me fall for this hero was his willingness to learn to take care of Tyler. No mater how much he disliked Emmy he still always kept the best interest of Tyler at heart and this made him the perfect make my knees go weak hero.
I particularity liked that the author let the story slowly build into a full out romance read. Some reads tend to build the don't like each other, to friend to more relationship pace too quickly and I feel as if I'm left with only half a story and as if I was cheated, and instead of a full romance read I ended up with five chapters missing.
It' s fine when done in other types of read, as it all depends on the how quick the reader needs the read to be but in certain cases a book can be over ten chapters long and it still moves too fast and ruins the entire read, so a big thank you to Kate Hardy for taking the time to really WRITE this book!
I'm taking away a message of life is seen through the eyes of each person differently, you might not agree with how they see things but if you stop for long enough to try and see it the way they see it, you might just discover more about yourself and lean that you are more than capable of handling anything that comes your way.
5/5 star review
" She sees the real him. He sees his life spiraling out of control"
August 26, 2013
Sweet book. Emmy and Dylan have been named co-guardians for their godson Tyler. They were good friends with Tyler's parents, just not with each other - more like total opposites. Emmy is emotional and creative and open-hearted. Dylan is a workaholic who thanks to a bad childhood has never wanted a family of his own. She thinks he's an uptight grouch and he thinks she's a flake, so how are they ever going to be able to raise Tyler together?
I really liked both Emmy and Dylan. In spite of their feelings toward each other they were willing to do whatever was best for Tyler. Emmy is a talented jewelry designer who tends to see the good things in life. Unfortunately she also has really bad luck in relationships so has pretty much written off getting involved with anyone until Tyler is grown. As she and Dylan settle in to their new lives she discovers that he's not as bad as she had thought. She sees his willingness to learn how to care for Tyler and also that he's more open to compromise. It isn't long until she is also noticing his good looks and that there's a buzz of attraction whenever she's around him. I really liked the slow growth from adversaries to friends to more. It wasn't a flash bang attraction but very real development that dealt with their different personalities and the problems that occasionally came up. Even with their growing feelings Emmy still had some issues left over from her previous relationships that nearly derailed their future, but talking it out solved the problem. One of the things I really liked about her was her happy outlook on things. Besides the playing with Tyler that she did, I loved the way she looked at the world around her. Seeing the butterfly gardens and the seaside through her eyes was great.
Dylan was a darker personality. He hadn't had a happy childhood, with no father and a mother who was constantly trying to "find herself". It also made him sure that he never wanted to have children because he would have no idea how to care properly for them. This caused the end of his marriage, which only reinforced his feelings. In spite of that he was willing to do his best for Tyler. I really liked the way that he had no trouble asking Emmy to teach him what he needed to know. I also liked the was that he realized that he had misjudged her by comparing her to his mother. He fought his attraction to her because he didn't want it to impact their care of Tyler, but more and more he saw the ways he had changed and thought that a future could be possible. I thought that his "lunch date" with Emmy was just the sweetest thing and more romantic than I had expected from him. I loved the way he went after her at the end.
I really liked both Emmy and Dylan. In spite of their feelings toward each other they were willing to do whatever was best for Tyler. Emmy is a talented jewelry designer who tends to see the good things in life. Unfortunately she also has really bad luck in relationships so has pretty much written off getting involved with anyone until Tyler is grown. As she and Dylan settle in to their new lives she discovers that he's not as bad as she had thought. She sees his willingness to learn how to care for Tyler and also that he's more open to compromise. It isn't long until she is also noticing his good looks and that there's a buzz of attraction whenever she's around him. I really liked the slow growth from adversaries to friends to more. It wasn't a flash bang attraction but very real development that dealt with their different personalities and the problems that occasionally came up. Even with their growing feelings Emmy still had some issues left over from her previous relationships that nearly derailed their future, but talking it out solved the problem. One of the things I really liked about her was her happy outlook on things. Besides the playing with Tyler that she did, I loved the way she looked at the world around her. Seeing the butterfly gardens and the seaside through her eyes was great.
Dylan was a darker personality. He hadn't had a happy childhood, with no father and a mother who was constantly trying to "find herself". It also made him sure that he never wanted to have children because he would have no idea how to care properly for them. This caused the end of his marriage, which only reinforced his feelings. In spite of that he was willing to do his best for Tyler. I really liked the way that he had no trouble asking Emmy to teach him what he needed to know. I also liked the was that he realized that he had misjudged her by comparing her to his mother. He fought his attraction to her because he didn't want it to impact their care of Tyler, but more and more he saw the ways he had changed and thought that a future could be possible. I thought that his "lunch date" with Emmy was just the sweetest thing and more romantic than I had expected from him. I loved the way he went after her at the end.
September 7, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. Both Dylan and Emmy were successful people who had insecurities. They also disliked each other intensely. An unfortunate incedent left them sharing custodyof a baby boy, as well as a home. Their relationship truly changed and gew as they learned about being parents and compromising. The only thing that made me give the story 4 stars instead of 5 was that the Dylan was still waiting for his divorce papers.
March 27, 2019
Ma che dolcezza! Kate ha scritto una storia molto semplice e magari banale, ma ci ha messo il cuore e si sente. Lui è il migliore amico di un uomo. Lei è la migliore amica di sua moglie. I coniugi muoiono e gli lasciano in affido il loro figlio di pochi mesi. Lui e Lei si detestano e non capiscono come potranno far funzionare la cosa. Ma funzionerà. E sarà un’emozione continua. Brava Kate!
rilettura (giudizio confermato)
delizioso, tenero e romantico. ma letto due volte basta. libero.
rilettura (giudizio confermato)
delizioso, tenero e romantico. ma letto due volte basta. libero.
August 21, 2013
Review Posted on HarlequinJunkie.com
Kate Hardy has written an awesome story with an amazing buildup in the storyline.The story was medium paced and wonderfully written with close to real life characters.Emmy and Dylan were someone you could easily come across in your daily life. Read More
Kate Hardy has written an awesome story with an amazing buildup in the storyline.The story was medium paced and wonderfully written with close to real life characters.Emmy and Dylan were someone you could easily come across in your daily life. Read More
July 6, 2014
This was a good relaxing read. Something slower and good for something to just lay back and read. Good characters with strength and personality, some steaminess, a cute baby, and a good HEA. Not something that really pulls you in but something that you float with. I liked how the characters try and begin to see each other. A good read for the lazy feeling kinda day.
June 1, 2014
I adored this book. Watching Dylan and Emmy discover how their first impressions of each other were wrong, and seeing them learn to work together, was a wonderful reading experience. And the way they fell in love was just perfect. Highly recommended!
August 26, 2013
Love this book after the last one from the same author.
Read
December 29, 2014Received 4 star @ RT Book Reviews
October 12, 2013
It reminds me of the movie 'Life As We Know It'
April 1, 2014
Really enjoyed this.
September 24, 2019
started this but just couldn't get into it. I read another of Kate Hardys books and loved it. but this one wasn't for me.
October 16, 2013
Cliche, nothing is unexpected.
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