Genre: Contemporary, Interracial Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Transgender
Reviewer: Tony
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About The Book
He had one rule. Sometimes rules were meant to be broken.
Drake
My life changed on the first day of school. Could this be a midlife crisis? No, that was too easy an explanation. I never crossed the line of dating a mother of one of the students in my school. That was a complication I didn’t need. My brain told me I needed to keep my distance, but every time I ran into Sari Hampton, every part of me screamed she was mine. There was no way I was going to be able to resist the pretty single mom.
Sari
I may write romance for a living, but I was just faking it. At thirty-nine, I was not having any success in finding my happily ever after. There was one thing in life I could control—I wanted a family. I’d grown up in foster care. And after years of fostering children like me, I’d given them a place to be safe no matter how briefly they came to me. That was until Reggie arrived, and I knew he was my son. Yet, the first day at his new school, I met Principal Drake Pike. He was too perfect. We weren’t going to be friends, but how long could I remain strong and keep a safe distance between him and my heart?
The Review
Mama Didn’t Sign Up for This will bring a smile to your face as you follow Sari on her journey to accepting Drake into her little family, and her heart.
Sari is a thirty-nine-year-old trans woman who has been through the fostering system and was fostering Reggie, a six-year-old boy before the two of them decided they were a family and adopted each other. Both have had a rough time getting to where they are now. In Sari’s case, she has built walls to keep the bad stuff away, but they work just as well against the good stuff. She’s been an investigative reporter, but now she has Reggie to care for, she has turned her hand to romantic fiction. She is very successful at everything she does, although she’s not looking for fame as much as security.
Drake is the principal at Reggie’s school, and he has a strict rule about not dating students’ mothers. When he meets Sari and Reggie, he has to reassess that rule. Let’s be honest – he doesn’t really try to apply it, as he is smitten from the beginning. Now he has to prove to Sari that he’s the man for her. He has a lot to offer in terms of understanding, with a generous heart and a loving family who would accept Sari and Reggie into their lives at the drop of a hat.
The three main characters are all well drawn and likeable. Sari is sassy and snarky, which is just what Drake needs in his life. Drake is a caring guy, which is just as well, with his large family. Sari needs a lot of reassurance that she is doing okay, and both Reggie and Drake are good at that.
In her turn, Sari is ferocious when it comes to protecting Reggie from harm. There are a number of lengthy conversations, some of which may be a bit overdone. There is one about Sari and Drake’s first meeting, which becomes kind of an inside joke between them and comes up a lot of times.
Sari needs a lot of consideration and cuddles when she is out of her comfort zone. Thankfully, Drake is the one to provide all that, and more.
Yeah, she’s worth it, and so is this book.
The Reviewer
Tony is an Englishman living amongst the Welsh and the Other Folk in the mountains of Wales. He lives with his partner of thirty-six years, four dogs, two ponies, various birds, and his bees. He is a retired lecturer and a writer of no renown but that doesn’t stop him enjoying what he used to think of as ‘sensible’ fantasy and sf. He’s surprised to find that if the story is well written and has likeable characters undergoing the trails of life, i.e. falling in love, falling out of love, having a bit of nooky (but not all the time), fending off foes, aliens and monsters, etc., he’ll be happy as a sandperson who has just offloaded a wagon of sand at the going market price. As long as there’s a story, he’s in. He aims to write fair and honest reviews. If he finds he is not the target reader he’ll move on.
