"A moving family drama"

Architect Jake Manning seems to have everything going with a career that has earned him respect and women who desperately want him. However, Jake feels incomplete as if he is missing out on the most important aspects of life. He realizes what he covets and concludes that raising a baby would make his life perfectly complete. As he does in business, the bachelor develops a baby plan since adoption agencies reject his application.

Jake decides mechanic Harley Emerson would be the ideal mother to birth his child though he will pay her to stay out of their lives afterwards. However, Harley craves respectability and security that Jake can provide her. She tenders a counteroffer of a marriage of convenience. Reluctantly, he agrees, but neither expected to fall in love with one another, especially when the matchmaker has yet to be born.

On the surface, this contemporary romance sounds inane with its marriage of convenience, male biological clock ticking theme. However, the lead couple makes the tale worth reading as their needs seem quite different but are actually the same, which leads to a passionate relationship novel. Readers who enjoy a family drama will take imminent delight in Susan Gable's delectable THE BABY PLAN.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 24, 2002