Playing For Keeps - Softcover

Templeton, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373218346 ISBN 13: 9780373218349

Publisher: Silhouette, 2003

Synopsis

With her life in complete turmoil due to her kids, her ex-husband, her mother, and the lack of sex, single mother Joanna Swann finds herself powerfully drawn to toy-store mogul Dale McConnaughy and gets more than she bargained for when she falls for this irresistible man. Original.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Joanna Swann has three kids, a roof that leaks, a business carving wood Santas and no sex life until she meets retired baseball pitcher Dale McConnaughy. The two meet inauspiciously after Joanna's Santas are rejected by the local art gallery and she breaks down crying in the toy store Dale now owns. But when he arrives at her house to set up a swing set for her twin boys a few days later, their relationship begins to bud, coaxed along by Joanna's best friend and her ex, Bobby. Although Dale is a player in every sense of the word, Joanna's warm honesty seduces him despite his defenses. Joanna, meanwhile, worries she's falling for another overgrown boy like her ex. Add Bobby's young pregnant fiancee and a secret Dale has kept since he was 10, and you have a complicated but compelling romantic yarn. Initially, it's difficult to see why Dale would be attracted to Joanna, a frumpy single mom with an attitude and issues, but their relationship blossoms believably after their first few encounters. Templeton (Loose Screws) has drawn flesh-and-blood characters and a rare sympathetic portrait of Joanna's ex. With its pitch-perfect prose, spot-on dialogue and steady pacing, Templeton's newest should score a home run with readers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Joanna Swan has her hands full raising her three children, while her ex-husband, Bobby, gets his much younger girlfriend, Tori, pregnant. Romance is the last thing on Joanna's mind, even when she meets handsome Dale McConnaughy, an ex-baseball player who now owns a toy store. He offers to buy several of the Santa Claus sculptures she's done and comes to her house to personally set up the play set Joanna's mother bought for her kids. Dale is undeniably attractive, but although he's great with kids, he doesn't seem in any hurry to settle down. He also refuses to talk about his past. But he's interested in Joanna, and she succumbs to temptation while trying to get used to the fact that Bobby is going to marry Tori. But Tori is having doubts about becoming a wife and mother at 20. The author of Loose Screws (2002) offers up a sweet, idealized romance. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Silhouette
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0373218346
• ISBN 13: 9780373218349
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400