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The Brannigan Sisters #1
Accompanying Alice
Single mother Alice Meyer's 35th birthday finds her unemployed with her eighteen year old twins graduated from high school and leaving home, while she, the eldest of seven girls sews the seed pearls on yet another of her younger sisters' wedding veils. But she really falls down the rabbit hole when she stops at the side of the road to help an injured stranger who immediately points a gun in her face.FBI Agent Gabriel Book is in the middle of the worst undercover of his life, after discovering his boss and long-time friend may not only have betrayed him but set him up to be murdered. But looking into Alice Meyer’s at once frightened and concerned eyes when she rescues him from near death at the side of the road is the thing that almost undoes him. Going home with her to hide in plain sight in the midst of her sister’s huge family wedding may be the biggest and most rewarding challenge he’s ever faced.Accompanying Alice is a book about family and the things it makes you do; about growing up, moving out, making choices and mistakes; but mostly it’s about mothers, daughters, sisters, lovers, weddings, seed pearls, insanity—and love, sex and condoms.
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 18, 2012
I had wanted to read this book ever since I read Drive By Wedding, which features the daughter of the heroine in Accompanying Alice. I enjoyed this book even though it was sometimes bogged down by way too much family but I was prepared for that since I had read Drive by Wedding and in that we had met the extended family of Alice, her six other sisters and their kids.
Alice has had a bad week, she has just turned thirty-five, her twin eighteen year old daughters have just graduated high school, one of her daughters has taken off on adventure and another one has eloped with her boyfriend and is pregnant, making her a grandmother and the book-store she has worked in for ages is closing down. So, a bad week. She wonders if she has been a bad mother and if her daughters have not learned from her mistakes.
You see Alice was the eldest of seven sisters and became pregnant at sixteen with the first boy she slept with Matt. Matt was a year older than her and they eloped and got married but when his parents found out they made her feel cheap and got her marriage annulled. So, Alice was left a pregnant high school student and she sucked it up and dedicated herself to being a mother, but now her kids are gone and it is her time, time to find out who she is because in many ways she is not mature, not when it comes to men, sexuality and relationships, she is just Alice, plain responsible.
She has been raised to be helpful so when she sees a man lying down on the street she goes to help and has a gun pointed at her head and a man asking for her ID and then telling her about him being undercover FBI, masquerading as a dirty cop and his partner being killed and his friends being traitors, it is like going down a rabbit hole, her life is dull and boring and not with men asking her to hide him in her house.
Gabriel the hero has been an agent for fifteen years and has seen a lot of darkness in those years with his work undercover and is quite cynical but it comes as a shock to him that one of his friends is guilty. Staying in Alice's house is a revelation since her youngest sister is getting married, so it is a hub for all her family and he comes to experience real life and family after a long time. Alice makes him aware of the eccentricities of her family, how they don't stop setting her up at weddings and these two pretend to be a thing.
Even though they hadn't known each other long and every portion of each other's past their relationship blossomed fast on an emotional level. Alice who couldn't figure out her own life could see through to Gabriel's problems and emotions and maybe that came from taking care of others all those years. Gabriel was raised as the only son of missionaries, non-violent and he tried to follow that way of life but he saw too much bad and joined law enforcement and even though his parents didn't understand his choice, they supported him, but his missions changed him, made him darker and that came between him and his parents.
I enjoyed these two together though like LLC I did feel they spent a lot of time on introspection. Alice was in many ways emotionally like a confused teenager with Gabriel and given her inexperience that was understandable. She had been burned once badly and left with two daughters to raise. She did tell Gabriel though that Matt came back twice in her life, once when she gave birth and when he graduated college, both time to ask her to marry him but by that time Alice had stopped loving him and there was no trust from her side so she sent him away but he called only her to ask about his daughters but made no contact, this made me feel ambivalent.
There is loads of drama in the book, her sister elopes, her married daughter comes back finding out she is not pregnant and confused and then there is a double wedding for her daughter and already married sister and the other daughter is stranded by her friends. Plus there are her well meaning but interfering relatives. Everytime Alice and Gabriel were not on page together, I wanted them to be, their emotional connection was awesome and I loved the epilogue. The quick romance worked for me.
Alice has had a bad week, she has just turned thirty-five, her twin eighteen year old daughters have just graduated high school, one of her daughters has taken off on adventure and another one has eloped with her boyfriend and is pregnant, making her a grandmother and the book-store she has worked in for ages is closing down. So, a bad week. She wonders if she has been a bad mother and if her daughters have not learned from her mistakes.
You see Alice was the eldest of seven sisters and became pregnant at sixteen with the first boy she slept with Matt. Matt was a year older than her and they eloped and got married but when his parents found out they made her feel cheap and got her marriage annulled. So, Alice was left a pregnant high school student and she sucked it up and dedicated herself to being a mother, but now her kids are gone and it is her time, time to find out who she is because in many ways she is not mature, not when it comes to men, sexuality and relationships, she is just Alice, plain responsible.
She has been raised to be helpful so when she sees a man lying down on the street she goes to help and has a gun pointed at her head and a man asking for her ID and then telling her about him being undercover FBI, masquerading as a dirty cop and his partner being killed and his friends being traitors, it is like going down a rabbit hole, her life is dull and boring and not with men asking her to hide him in her house.
Gabriel the hero has been an agent for fifteen years and has seen a lot of darkness in those years with his work undercover and is quite cynical but it comes as a shock to him that one of his friends is guilty. Staying in Alice's house is a revelation since her youngest sister is getting married, so it is a hub for all her family and he comes to experience real life and family after a long time. Alice makes him aware of the eccentricities of her family, how they don't stop setting her up at weddings and these two pretend to be a thing.
Even though they hadn't known each other long and every portion of each other's past their relationship blossomed fast on an emotional level. Alice who couldn't figure out her own life could see through to Gabriel's problems and emotions and maybe that came from taking care of others all those years. Gabriel was raised as the only son of missionaries, non-violent and he tried to follow that way of life but he saw too much bad and joined law enforcement and even though his parents didn't understand his choice, they supported him, but his missions changed him, made him darker and that came between him and his parents.
I enjoyed these two together though like LLC I did feel they spent a lot of time on introspection. Alice was in many ways emotionally like a confused teenager with Gabriel and given her inexperience that was understandable. She had been burned once badly and left with two daughters to raise. She did tell Gabriel though that Matt came back twice in her life, once when she gave birth and when he graduated college, both time to ask her to marry him but by that time Alice had stopped loving him and there was no trust from her side so she sent him away but he called only her to ask about his daughters but made no contact, this made me feel ambivalent.
There is loads of drama in the book, her sister elopes, her married daughter comes back finding out she is not pregnant and confused and then there is a double wedding for her daughter and already married sister and the other daughter is stranded by her friends. Plus there are her well meaning but interfering relatives. Everytime Alice and Gabriel were not on page together, I wanted them to be, their emotional connection was awesome and I loved the epilogue. The quick romance worked for me.
December 23, 2014
July, 2012
Probably more 3.5*. I liked the beginning and the end. Loved the humor and crazy big family dynamics but felt the middle of the book kind of bogged down. Maybe too much introspection by both the h/H. Wanted them to quit dithering and get on with it.
Re-Read December 23, 2014 Upgraded from 3* to 4*
Probably more 3.5*. I liked the beginning and the end. Loved the humor and crazy big family dynamics but felt the middle of the book kind of bogged down. Maybe too much introspection by both the h/H. Wanted them to quit dithering and get on with it.
Re-Read December 23, 2014 Upgraded from 3* to 4*
September 6, 2024
"Accompanying Alice" is book one in "The Brannigan Sisters" series by Terese Ramin. It was an enjoyable read and kept my interest the whole time. I couldn't wait to continue reading to see what happened next. Alice is a 35 year old single mother of twins. The twins recently graduated from high school and set out to live their lives. Alice is driving one night and sees a man in the road. At first, she thinks he is dead, and she stops to check on him. She finds out that Gabriel is an undercover FBI agent, and he puts his trust in her. He lost his partner, and now he is thinking that it is the corruption of law enforcement that is responsible for what is going on. Gabriel has never thought about finding anyone and settling down. He has been doing his job and never gave it a second thought, that is, until he meets Alice. Alice is the one in the family that everyone goes to and had to grow up fast when she got pregnant with her girls and had to raise them on her own. I absolutely loved reading about Alice and Gabriel and can't wait to read on in this series to see what happens next.
February 25, 2012
4 ½ Stars! ~ Alice Brannigan Meyers was having one hell of a week. “On Monday, Alice turned thirty-five. On Tuesday, her eighteen year old twins graduated from high school. Wednesday, the rumor that the small independent bookstore – which had fed, clothed and housed her and the twins for the past fifteen years – was going out of business became a fact. In Thursday’s wash she found six square innocent-looking cellophane-wrapped packages that let her know at least one, if not both of her girls, was no longer innocent. Friday, Allyn, the twin older by five minutes, climbed into a camper filled with ‘just friends, Ma’ – three of whom were boys – and set off on a 3,000 mile cross country pilgrimage to Meccan, LA, land of the stars. On Saturday, Rebecca, the younger twin, called from East Langsing to say ‘Hi, Ma! Mike and I eloped last night hope you’re not mad and oh by the way you’ll be a grandma in six and a half months isn’t that wonderful? Bye.’” And on Sunday, alone for the first time in eighteen years, Alice had nothing to do but reflect and realize that “Oh, God, it had really happened. In one short week she’d gotten old.” But in all the flurry, it wasn’t until Monday again that Alice’s life was going to change forever. On her way to a job interview, she spotted a man lying on the side of the road. Good Samaritan that Alice is, she stopped, praying over and over again, “Oh, God. Oh, please. Oh, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead…” Undercover with the FBI, Gabriel Book had narrowly escaped an ambush, one that had seen his partner fatally shot. Not sure who the woman was bending over him, he swung up his gun right into her face, and informed her that he needed a new identity and a safe place to hide for awhile – that her place would do.
Gabriel couldn’t have picked a better place to hide in plain site. From the moment he’d entered her home, it seemed he was swept right in the middle of her family. Not the twins, as they are off trying to begin their own lives, but Alice’s family, her seven sisters and her match making mother. Alice’s youngest sister Grace is getting married at the end of the week, and the Brannigan family is in a flurry. The fact that Alice has a gorgeous man living in her house causes even more interference from her noisy sisters. I understand from Ms. Ramin’s bio that she is one of eight siblings, and this shines in the hilarious situations only a sibling of many could create with such a flair. Gabriel and Alice are soul mates and instinctively click from the moment they meet. Though there are many fun moments, the crisis that Alice faces with maturing children and her insecurities of her own place in the world are very realistically done. I love that Gabriel has a sense of humour, but that though he has his own demons to put to rest, he’s also a man able to take charge and sense what Alice needs before she realizes she needs it. This is a whirlwind of a story that grabs you right from the first pages!
Gabriel couldn’t have picked a better place to hide in plain site. From the moment he’d entered her home, it seemed he was swept right in the middle of her family. Not the twins, as they are off trying to begin their own lives, but Alice’s family, her seven sisters and her match making mother. Alice’s youngest sister Grace is getting married at the end of the week, and the Brannigan family is in a flurry. The fact that Alice has a gorgeous man living in her house causes even more interference from her noisy sisters. I understand from Ms. Ramin’s bio that she is one of eight siblings, and this shines in the hilarious situations only a sibling of many could create with such a flair. Gabriel and Alice are soul mates and instinctively click from the moment they meet. Though there are many fun moments, the crisis that Alice faces with maturing children and her insecurities of her own place in the world are very realistically done. I love that Gabriel has a sense of humour, but that though he has his own demons to put to rest, he’s also a man able to take charge and sense what Alice needs before she realizes she needs it. This is a whirlwind of a story that grabs you right from the first pages!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2023
3 1/2 stars rounded up to 4
Accompanying Alice is the first book in The Brannigan Sister series. There are seven Brannigan sisters and they are far too involved in each other’s lives. This book focuses on the oldest sister Alice. When she was 16 Alice got pregnant and ended up raising her twin girls on her own. The twins have just graduated leaving Alice an empty nester. While driving one day she sees what she thinks is a dead man on the side of the road. When she stops she finds out the man is not dead. The man, Gabriel, claims to be an undercover FBI agent. He holds a gun on Alice and demands she take him home with her. Despite this start Alice and Gabriel are definitely attracted to each other and their chemistry is intense. Both are dealing with emotional issues (and physically dangerous issues on Gabriel’s part) that make it difficult to start a new relationship. Gabriel was a very likeable character. He is struggling with the betrayal by someone he considered a friend.
I liked the storyline, but a few things really affected my enjoyment of the book. Alice’s family was funny and interesting but not very likeable. Several sisters and Alice’s twins were downright disrespectful to Alice. They claim to love one another but there was no evidence of that. At first Alice was likeable. She successfully raised her daughters by herself and was brave enough to help someone she knows nothing about. Towards the end of the book Alice admitted to doing something (won’t spoil it) and it really changed my opinion of her. I also found the book difficult to read. There were abrupt POV changes, sometimes in the middle of a scene. I often had to go back and reread to figure out whose thoughts I was reading. The storyline is interesting and I think many people will enjoy it. It wasn’t for me but I encourage others to read it and decide for themselves.
Accompanying Alice is the first book in The Brannigan Sister series. There are seven Brannigan sisters and they are far too involved in each other’s lives. This book focuses on the oldest sister Alice. When she was 16 Alice got pregnant and ended up raising her twin girls on her own. The twins have just graduated leaving Alice an empty nester. While driving one day she sees what she thinks is a dead man on the side of the road. When she stops she finds out the man is not dead. The man, Gabriel, claims to be an undercover FBI agent. He holds a gun on Alice and demands she take him home with her. Despite this start Alice and Gabriel are definitely attracted to each other and their chemistry is intense. Both are dealing with emotional issues (and physically dangerous issues on Gabriel’s part) that make it difficult to start a new relationship. Gabriel was a very likeable character. He is struggling with the betrayal by someone he considered a friend.
I liked the storyline, but a few things really affected my enjoyment of the book. Alice’s family was funny and interesting but not very likeable. Several sisters and Alice’s twins were downright disrespectful to Alice. They claim to love one another but there was no evidence of that. At first Alice was likeable. She successfully raised her daughters by herself and was brave enough to help someone she knows nothing about. Towards the end of the book Alice admitted to doing something (won’t spoil it) and it really changed my opinion of her. I also found the book difficult to read. There were abrupt POV changes, sometimes in the middle of a scene. I often had to go back and reread to figure out whose thoughts I was reading. The storyline is interesting and I think many people will enjoy it. It wasn’t for me but I encourage others to read it and decide for themselves.
July 13, 2023
Alice has her hands full when she takes a turn as a good Samaritan. She finds Gabriel on the side of the road left for dead. This is a wonderful story of two people reassessing where they are in their lives and taking chances on trusting again. I felt like Alice and Gabriel were just plodding through life until they found each other and created a spark – making them ready to want more from themselves and each other. A great journey!
September 14, 2023
Based on the blurb I thought I was getting a mystery suspense but I got more than that and was quite surprised. Even though I don't have 6 sisters or twin daughters, I found myself relating to Alice and was rooting for her to get her hea. But wow, it was like Alice did not want a hea. Enter Gabriel who points a gun at her face and basically moves into her house. There is introspection, 2 court house weddings, family, love, laughter and falling in love.
May 22, 2019
Review
The plot is interesting and the sisters are very fun, but there was way too much time spent on detailing the main characters' inner thoughts and not enough action.
The plot is interesting and the sisters are very fun, but there was way too much time spent on detailing the main characters' inner thoughts and not enough action.
July 4, 2023
I read this years ago and I loved it
September 6, 2016
I like this because it features a 35+ heroine, and because the hero is really quite swoon-worthy. I liked all the family antics, and the whole wedding plot was quite nice as well.
The only thing I didn't like was the baby filled epilogue.
The only thing I didn't like was the baby filled epilogue.
March 27, 2017
When good Samaritan, Alice Meyer, stops to check out a body lying by the road, she doesn't realize what it will mean for her. All she knows is that she has just turned thirty-five and suddenly freed of the obligations of single parenthood as her twin daughters have flown the coop, and it has been a bad week.
When FBI agent Gabriel Book shoves a gun in the of the woman who stopped by the side of the road to help, he doesn't realize what it will mean for him. All he knows is that one of his partners has betrayed him and left him for dead.
Reluctantly joining forces, Alice suddenly has an uninvited guest in her home and Gabriel must trust someone to protect his identity. Added to that, it is the week of Alice's younger sister Grace's wedding and her home is being overrun with family particularly her sisters. Explaining Gabriel to her sisters is a situation that fraught with difficulty until he claims to be her boyfriend the same day he has found sanctuary in her home.
Yet, they do connect, and quickly, during this busy, crazy week of constant interruptions with aunts, uncles, cousins, daughters, and sisters, but will this relationship actually last when each knows they shouldn't get involved? Will they risk their hearts...for a love that matters?
This romance starts a bit slowly, is not particularly graphic in regards to sexual situations, but it has its moments particularly when each of them is sharing the similar thoughts and almost says exactly what the other one is thinking at the same time.
Quote:
"...words wounded more easily than shrapnel, did more damage, were harder to remove." (page 90)
When FBI agent Gabriel Book shoves a gun in the of the woman who stopped by the side of the road to help, he doesn't realize what it will mean for him. All he knows is that one of his partners has betrayed him and left him for dead.
Reluctantly joining forces, Alice suddenly has an uninvited guest in her home and Gabriel must trust someone to protect his identity. Added to that, it is the week of Alice's younger sister Grace's wedding and her home is being overrun with family particularly her sisters. Explaining Gabriel to her sisters is a situation that fraught with difficulty until he claims to be her boyfriend the same day he has found sanctuary in her home.
Yet, they do connect, and quickly, during this busy, crazy week of constant interruptions with aunts, uncles, cousins, daughters, and sisters, but will this relationship actually last when each knows they shouldn't get involved? Will they risk their hearts...for a love that matters?
This romance starts a bit slowly, is not particularly graphic in regards to sexual situations, but it has its moments particularly when each of them is sharing the similar thoughts and almost says exactly what the other one is thinking at the same time.
Quote:
"...words wounded more easily than shrapnel, did more damage, were harder to remove." (page 90)
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