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For Our Children's Sake: Heart to Heart
Lucy Grayford is devastated when she discovers that her daughter is not actually hers. Then she meets Dominic Grayling. Six years ago there was a baby mix-up, and they discover they now have each other's biological child. There is only one solution to such a heart-rending situation - to marry for their children's sake. But will this be a marriage of pure convenience? Or can it mean they will become a true, loving family . . . at last?
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
Natasha Oakley
102 books15 followersI was born in an 'old' English county called Middlesex. You won't find it on any modern map - it's been swallowed up by Greater London and at the swish of a bureaucratic pen it disappeared. Nevertheless, I had a perfectly happy childhood there with two parents who love me and a younger brother I still like! Painfully shy, books were my passion and my first career ambition was to be an author -- mainly, I think, because I didn't fancy leaving home.
Everyone seems to have one teacher who's inspired them more than any other. I met mine when I was thirteen and his name was Frank Richards, our drama teacher. He introduced me to theatre and at fourteen I walked on stage for the first time in a play he'd written. It was the beginning of a new passion.
After a three-year classical theatre training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, I started my career in professional theatre under my Equity name of Jessica Dean.
In 1991 I married my husband and we decided to start our family. I must have harboured some kind of daft idea that I would have a baby, put it in a papoose and carry on pretty much as before. Not surprisingly it didn't quite work out that way. I hadn't realised quite how powerful mother-love is. I had five children in six years, working only very briefly during this time.
I'm blessed with an easy, happy marriage and five great children, but when illness touched our lives I started to reassess my future. It was the start of my writing career. My second submission to Mills & Boon was accepted in December 2003.
I now live in Bedfordshire with my husband and my children. I love antique fairs, collect kitchenalia, paint in watercolour, and am a signer for the deaf (BSL). My house is in a constant state of disarray but I make great cakes, write books and no one seems to mind.
Everyone seems to have one teacher who's inspired them more than any other. I met mine when I was thirteen and his name was Frank Richards, our drama teacher. He introduced me to theatre and at fourteen I walked on stage for the first time in a play he'd written. It was the beginning of a new passion.
After a three-year classical theatre training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, I started my career in professional theatre under my Equity name of Jessica Dean.
In 1991 I married my husband and we decided to start our family. I must have harboured some kind of daft idea that I would have a baby, put it in a papoose and carry on pretty much as before. Not surprisingly it didn't quite work out that way. I hadn't realised quite how powerful mother-love is. I had five children in six years, working only very briefly during this time.
I'm blessed with an easy, happy marriage and five great children, but when illness touched our lives I started to reassess my future. It was the start of my writing career. My second submission to Mills & Boon was accepted in December 2003.
I now live in Bedfordshire with my husband and my children. I love antique fairs, collect kitchenalia, paint in watercolour, and am a signer for the deaf (BSL). My house is in a constant state of disarray but I make great cakes, write books and no one seems to mind.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2020
Meh, I couldn't bond with this h. By descriptions of her habits I pictured a very slatternly/slovenly person and NOT a boho, free-spirit the author wanted her to portray. She was pretty pathetic and lacked ambition - a free-spirit does not mean you have to lack ambition. I get the feeling she was just a novelty to the H and he would grow bored and begin to resent living in a "hovel" leading him to remain in this marriage ONLY FOR THEIR CHILDREN'S SAKE.
March 11, 2017
Fue como WTF, ¿cómo intercambian embriones?
Fue interesante el planteamiento y la solución que él propuso.
Fue interesante el planteamiento y la solución que él propuso.
August 22, 2018
Love the setting but the female lead could be some less hopeless.
July 14, 2019
4 Stars! ~ Seven years before, Lucy Grayson and her husband had undergone IVF to conceive their daughter Chloe. And since Michael's death from a brain tumor, Chloe is Lucy's world. But there was a mistake at the fertility clinic, and Chloe isn’t her biological daughter. Chloe is Dominic and Eloise Grayling's daughter. Tragically Dominic lost his wife Eloise in child-birth for his daughter Abby, only Abby belongs to Lucy. Dominic knows that there's no possible way he could ever give up Abby, but he has a strong need to know his biological daughter. Meeting the beautiful widow, Dominic knows that she feels exactly as he does. The only solution is for them to marry. It'll be a marriage of convenience, for the sake of the girls. Lucy is certain, that though Eloise has been dead for more than six years, she's still very much alive in Dominic's house and memories. But is marriage for the sake of the girls enough?
This is a deeply emotional love story. Your heart breaks for both Lucy and Dominic as they struggle with their own personal torment to find the right thing to do. Thrown in to add extra tension are Dominic's possessive in-laws and their niece, who has always dreamt of being the next Mrs. Grayling. This is Ms. Oakley's debut and it is wonderful. I found myself routing for both Lucy and Dominic right from the beginning, and Chloe and Abby are delightful. Well done!
This is a deeply emotional love story. Your heart breaks for both Lucy and Dominic as they struggle with their own personal torment to find the right thing to do. Thrown in to add extra tension are Dominic's possessive in-laws and their niece, who has always dreamt of being the next Mrs. Grayling. This is Ms. Oakley's debut and it is wonderful. I found myself routing for both Lucy and Dominic right from the beginning, and Chloe and Abby are delightful. Well done!
August 10, 2010
Two single parents find that their children were mixed up during an IVF procedure and decide to get married for the children's sake. Quick reading - good book.
May 24, 2013
How awful for anyone to be in this situation that these characters where in. But the way the story is dealt with is really well.
A good read and a well written ending
A good read and a well written ending
February 2, 2017
Read in 2005.
Reread February 1, 2017
Reread February 1, 2017
Displaying 1 - 7 of 8 reviews