... AND BABY MAKES TWO
JUDY SHEEHAN
ISBN(13)9780345485588/(10)0345485580
February 2007
Ballantine Books
Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway, 18th Floor, New York, New York, 10019
Trade Paperback
$13.95
336 pages
Contemporary
Rating: 4 Cups

Thirty-seven year old Jane Howe sees babies and pregnant women all around New York City. Is God trying to tell her she needs a child? Jane knows she has no one special in her life, and she is getting older. Once she decides she wants a child, she plans to adopt. Introduced to Founding Mothers, a group of women who legally adopt unwanted girl babies from China since they are abandoned almost at birth.

Peter Mandell is in a very long distance relationship with his wife. She travels to exotic locations to write, alone. He lives and works in New York and maybe sees her a month out of the year, unless she wants to include him on a vacation. After meeting Jane he sees a different path for his life and the two move in together.

Peter has moved in with Jane but is still legally married and has not even started divorce proceedings. They love each other but he must now make up his mind who will he commit to, his wife or Jane. Jane has a best friend in Ray a neighbor who just happens to be gay and is happy to help and be a sort of Daddy to the little girl she wants to adopt. Until then, Jane goes with Ray to China and brings baby Beth home. Peter is waiting for them at the airport. Time now for everyone to work thru bringing baby home and finding out if love is strong enough to break free of old ties.

I liked this novel because it has something very relevant to all women or would be parents, another option for having children. To adopt out of China is more popular and I was surprised it was fairly easy to do since it is so hard to adopt legally here at home and much more expensive and extensive. I myself am, well, not quite over the hill but my own biological clock has been ticking for almost two decades. I can definitely understand the appeal for adoption especially unwanted girl babies in other countries. I would say if you want kids go for it and just do it, make it work however you can, in vitro, adoption or the good old fashioned way; just remember it does not have to take two, you can be single and have a child to make that twosome instead.

Lainey
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance
Reviewer for Karen Find Out About New Books