Bringing Emma Home

by Stella Maclean

The family she’s always wanted…

Becoming a mother means everything to Grace Fellowes. She and her husband, Aidan, are ready to adopt when they learn that Aidan is a father already. A tragic accident has left five-year-old Emma motherless and Grace with the devastating knowledge that her husband had an affair. Her heart and her trust are broken.

Smart, loving and full of life, redheaded Emma is perfectly charming. She’s everything Grace has longed for—and a constant reminder of Aidan’s infidelity. But Emma needs a family and Aidan can’t abandon his daughter. This child could be the best thing that ever happened to her marriage—if Grace can learn to forgive.

Genres: Childrens

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 23, 2018

About the author

I fell in love with reading at a very early age, mostly because my mother was a school teacher and she insisted that my sisters and I be able to read really well. It wasn't until a career change that I was able to embrace my joy of writing. I'm happiest when I'm writing. I will always write. I can't help myself.
For new releases and promos, find me on Bookbub;
https://bit.ly/3qV57VO

Reviews

[boogenhagen]

Sadly, this book is an emotional rollercoaster wreck about an infertile wife being confronted with the fact of her husband's dirty weekend in the form of an orphaned child.

It is an absolute fail on both the HEA and the resolutions. It ends, as we can tritely expect and have seen 50 million gadzillion times before, with the h being told that her love isn't "pure and unconditional" enough if she can't mend fences with her husband and parent his now five years old daughter.

Why is it 2018 and we are STILL martyring romance heroines to "prove the purity and unconditional depth" of their love? Did the husband prove his unconditional love when he got irked because his wife was ramping up the fertility treatments and he decided to bang a client for a weekend? Are we supposed to believe it was a one time slip when he clearly uses sex to bang away his frustrations and apparently there have been a ton of them over the last several years?

I do think parents have unconditional love for their kids, I know I have unconditional love for my cats and other furry companions. But srsly - an adult loving relationship has conditions, as it should. There should be expectations on both partners sides that should be met and there should be consequences when those expectations are deliberately disregarded and betrayed.

A big one would be keeping your pants zipped and if your wife's baby need is making you crazy, you talk about it and either leave her or put up with it and find a counselor.

The h had pretty much come to terms with the infertility by the time the book starts, she wanted to adopt. The H is the weakest beta slime slurper I have read in a few years, he relies on the h to prop him up as he is absolutely clueless about everything. He isn't proactive in ANYTHING relationshipwise in this book. However he was all about feeling studly because he got a weekend smut fest pregnant and so the infertility issue wasn't HIS fault.

Then we have the secondary characters, one of whom is the h's brother and tells her that she has to prove her love by accepting her cheating husband and his kid cause it happened five years earlier. NOT for the h it didn't. That was standard secondary character pimp out plot tropiness and it sucked.

The other secondary character is the little girl's nanny - who is so, so adamant that the amoral alley cat who fucked a married man and then never notified him of the pregnancy except in the event of her death is a good person.

Um, well no the dead woman isn't a good person. Good people don't screw married men, good people contact baby daddies in the event of a stork visit and good people, if they decide that that the married man was good for sperm donation, bury the actual donor information until the baby's adulthood and find another guardian for their child- so please get off the OW being a good person trope, she is dead, not sainted.

But the real failure here is that the h wanted to adopt a baby and the author presents this as " Well, the h can parent this one". That outcome is a road map to Hell and the destruction of this marriage and any effective parenting whatsoever, with a lot emotional fallout to everyone scattered over YEARS.

Primarily because the little girl is already five years old, her foundations have already been laid by a woman who was at best misguided and at worst completely amoral and I am going for the latter assumption. This little girl already knows the h is NOT her mother, there is no bonding here. This little girl is fiercely possessive of "her daddy" and already resents the h.

In ten years life for this h is going to be hell and her's and the child's resentments are NEVER going to go away. It is one thing to adopt - it gives all the parties involved a 'blank slate' so to speak. It is quite another to take up your husband's affair baby, the heartache and pain will be never ending because even in the story line, you can see that the h is definitely one against the father/daughter team.

Even if they do adopt more children, there is going to be continual conflict, simply because of the circumstances and trust me - none of these people had the emotional grace to handle any of it. SMcL slaps on a semi-open ambiguous ending and calls it an HEA - but that is BS and I for one, am certainly not buying it.

There is really only two ways this story, as it was written, should have ended. The h and H divorce and the h pursues her child fulfillment wish either on her own or with a new partner, or the little girl gets placed with a new family. As it stands, this ain't gonna end well AT ALL, FOR ANYONE, and that is a terrible foreboding to end a supposed romance with.


Addendum to the above


A small word about forgiveness here too, cause that seems to be a heavy demand in this book.

Forgiveness according to the dictionary means " To give up resentment of or claim to requital"

So what that actually means is that when you forgive someone, you are saying you are not going to hunt their punk ass down and go medieval on it, their family and probably their dog until the 7th generation or whatever.

It means someone did you an injury and you are not going to make them suffer for it. You are going to let it go.

There is nothing in that definition that requires further interaction with the offender. In fact it is probably better for the giving up resentment part to never have dealings with that person again. For your own peace of mind and happiness.

Somehow in all this big wide world with different values and beliefs, it is touted that you must "Embrace the sinner and all his works" to truly forgive. Please.

You probably shouldn't go around swinging a skillet and bopping offenders on the head - that is assault and you will get jail time.

On the other hand, when some shows you who they are, believe them. Embracing the wrongdoer only encourages the bad behavior and the object of redemption is to correct one's wrongs.

"Go forth and sin no more," -- that requires effort on the wrong doers part and in that light, they have enough to be going with and you are not required to carry their baggage for them, continual association is NOT required and probably not going to help them in their quest for redemption in the long run.

Redemption works only because the offender manages to dig it out for themselves and therefore they appreciate it.

[Rejane]

And I come to this question: am I to cold hearted soulless bitch who will not secure my place in heaven because I cannot forgive this kind of betrayal? The boy (not a man, not a hero just a boy) was careless, hurtful, disrespectful, liar, a cheater, a worthless piece of shit. I would send him packing with his kid and would never allow him to come back. I have no martyr or Mother Theresa of Calcuta complex.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Lu Bielefeld]

AVOID:
Always in these stories the heroine has to accept and live with the living proof of the husband's cheating. I'd love to see her kick him to the curb and move on.

[Book]

Sigh. The heroine, Grace, finds out her husband of 10 years had an affair five years ago after he is contacted by his baby momma’s lawyer after she dies in a car accident. They’ve been trying—unsuccessfully—to have a baby for years now (they were trying when he was screwing the OW too) and may settle for adoption.

Bringing Emma home is the story of how they navigate the H’s responsibility for his newly discovered daughter and their attempts to repair their marriage.

The writing was fine; however, IMO, this book fails to do what many others like it also fail to do—adequately address the impact upon the heroine from having to see proof of her husband’s betrayal and the realization that while proclaiming to love her, he was putting it in another woman.

BTW, why do the heroines in these books always seem to have family and/or friends who tell them what a good guy they have and how they should forgive him? I have come across a very limited number of books where the husband finds out his wife’s child isn’t his and I have yet to see anyone telling him to forgive her. What gives? Lower standards, perhaps?

[shms]

I finished this in one sitting and left feeling like my insides had been mangled. I realise this has to have an HEA but the time frame just didn't work, I didn't get there with them. It was so painful to read about the h's lost dreams, her reality forever changed by her husbands cheating and yet I didn't feel he ever understood the depth of his betrayal and what she'd forever have to live with. That left me with a lump in my throat. I could go on and on about so many aspects of this book but what left me so sad was the h's hurt was, if not exactly negated, certainly muted at every turn. It's about his hurt, being reasonable, giving him a chance, the child's interest, her faults. Why?

edited - I felt the need to explain my rating. It was a 1* for the way the 'romance' played out. I needed some venting and serious grovelling and got neither. it actually was a 4* for the way it played my emotions and the sense of injustice I was left with. While that outcome may not have been what the author was aiming for, it was still powerful. So 3* seemed a compromise.

[April Reader]

I really hate that the heroine had nothing going on in her life other than trying to have a baby and making quilts.

The hero was an asshat in sheeps clothing. What I mean by that is, he’d continually tell the heroine how much he loves her, how much he regrets the weekend tryst and that he’ll do anything to make it up to her but when it comes down to it, he doesn’t do anything to make it up to her.

Then when it comes to making a decision about Emma, the child he fathered, he doesn’t even consider his wife’s feelings about the girl. He doesn’t give her time to get used to the idea. He simply tells her, they’re taking the kid home and that’s that. Actually, he thinks she should be thrilled because she’s wanted a child for so long - well, now she has one. Lucky her, right?

Grace is obviously pissed at her idiot husband and tells him that they should return home for a few days or a week or two to get used to the idea, discuss their marriage and plan for this unexpected situation. The husband says nope, he’s keeping the kid so what is there to talk about? She goes home while he stays in the woman’s house for several weeks. He even Skypes his wife from her home office and shows off how convenient it is that she had a home office. Doesn’t even consider how much it would hurt his wife to see the woman’s picture in the back or for her to think about the fact that that’s where her husband’s affair began.

The other thing that I had an issue with is that it was mentioned a few times that after his weekend affair with the woman, he never heard from her again. That’s not the same thing as saying he never contacted her again or he was glad that he never heard from her again. It sort of sounded like the affair didn’t go further because she didn’t contact him again. Maybe he didn’t contact her either but if she made the first move, would he have accepted it? I wasn’t satisfied that he wouldn’t. Especially because he canceled his plans with his wife to stay with this woman at her house for one weekend. It wasn’t a one time thing - it was an entire weekend and he admitted that it was hot and wild even though he felt guilty about it.

The ending also felt abrupt. It felt like they still had so many issues to get over but the author met her word count so it had to end.

I also hated how everyone was pressuring Grace to simply accept the child as if it’s the natural thing to do. Yes the child is innocent but Grace just learned about the affair. To expect her to act like she should just fall in love with the kid was annoying. Yes it took her a few weeks to get there but in the meantime, her husband offered her no support for what she was going through (even though he was saying he’ll do anything...), her brother was telling her to basically get over it because it was 5 years ago.

So frustrating!

[Tiffany]

1 Stars

This book is about Aiden, a husband and cheater, who is in shock that he fathered a child from an affair and now he is the guardian since the child’s mother died. He ends up wanting this child because his wife can’t have children and makes all these decisions about what they are going to do without input from his wife. The wife tried to stay strong and punish him but ends up raising the little girl, at least that is what we are led to believe since there is no epilogue.

[Janga]

Just once I'd like to see this plot with gender roles reversed. I not only disliked the burden of forgiving and getting past placed on the heroine, but I thought the plot was too thin on development and too heavy on repetition. I should avoid infidelity stories, but I remember the rare book like Kathleen Eagle's Reason to Believe and keep hoping.

[Livvie]

This just fell flat, the ending had no real resolution.

[Elizabeth]

This cover 😂 the book is about cheating!

[Tmstprc]

An infertile couple, baby obsessed woman and her enabling husband, discover he fathered a child during a weekend fling. The mother has died and he has custody of a 4 year old. The backstory is sad, she’s obsessed about having a baby to the point it has completely controlled every aspect of their lives for the last 7 years. Instead of dealing with this, he has an unplanned encounter with a client 5 years prior. Obviously, this is a bomb going off in their lives. I wanted to like her, as a reader you feel her pain, but there’s something very unsympathetic about her. He's just clueless, making plans to incorporate this poor motherless child into their lives, without hearing or understanding her issues. He’s spent 7 years enabling her obsession and now says here’s our child, let’s move on.

[Kate Vale]

Although I understand how difficult it is to write about the issue of a man cheating on his wife and the implications of that action, I was frustrated with this treatment of this difficult topic. First, Grace Fellowes seems way too self-centered to be a sympathetic character. Oh, I can understand her angst after she learns about her husband's straying episode, but I kept wanting to give her a dope-slap upside the head and tell her to "Get over it!"

Yes, Aidan was wrong to do what he did, but he, too, got on my nerves. He was too clueless regarding what he needed to do, even after his brother-in-law and the nanny of the child take him aside and tell him what he should do.

Then there's the child, cute, of course, and endearing. That she becomes the reason for Grace's turn-around was not a surprise, but the final denoument seemed to occur too soon after I'd waited too long for it to occur. I know forgiveness is hard-won in such situations, but I would have preferred a less fraught, hand-wringing situation.

[Lorrie]

I tried to get through this one... Managed to make it further than a lot of the people who DNFed this book, but in the end, it was just awful.

I get the whole giving people a second chance thing. I get the whole babies sometimes happen when people cheat thing. I get the whole it's never the kid's fault when parents behave poorly thing. But in this book it was just handled so damn badly, it was painful to read to the point where I just said fuck it and moved on.

First, the whole lead up to the discovery of Aiden's adultery was just cringeworthy to read. Then we have Grace's hissy fit when they finally go to meet Emma... By this point they've had three plus weeks to "talk about this", but she waited until THEN to put her foot down about it? PLEASE.

All in all, this is a hard pass... I'll probably avoid more books by this author just because of the poor choice to even bring this story to light.

[Hinata]

It should have been 'bringing grace back home'

[Morgan Thomas]

Disgraceful.

[Abril Peña]

Most part of the book the heroine stays strong, asking his husband to understand how she feels. Through all the pages we read, she needs for him to listen to her. She asked over and over to be considered in the decisions, to be considerate towards her feelings and she is willing to work in their marriage... Every time they talk only his feelings and needs are important, what his wife feels takes second place. She must forgive his infidelity quickly because he has to take care of the daughter he fathered from his infidelity. He swears to love his wife and says she is the most important thing to him but never shows it; empty talk, no action. Every time his wife asks him to take a different course of action to strengthen their marriage, before making rash decisions, he ignores her...

She's strong almost all the book, but in the last five pages it's like she had amnesia and is someone else. The ending feels rush.

Also, why relatives do not stand by the one that's been cheated on...

Finally, it was a rage read for me that the kid didn't know it was heroine's home, like WTF?! oh it super important that she has a stable home, and you're wife's stability that you crush?!