BABY BY CONTACT

Author: Debra Salonen ISBN: 9780373782376 5/2008 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: HARLEQUIN

Libby McGannon wants a baby. That’s why she’s offering a share in her family gold mine to the right sperm donor. She gets more than she bargained for, however, when gorgeous Hollywood actor Cooper Lindstrom blows into town. The no-nonsense postmaster of Sentinel Pass wants only one thing from Cooper, and she’s got a mother lode of rules to go with it. Too bad Cooper’s never played by the rules…especially when it comes to love. Now he wants a stake in his child’s future—a future that includes Libby. But when his true reason for being in town is revealed, Cooper’s got some explaining to do. Can he make Libby trust him again…make her see that it’s never too late to be the person you were meant to be?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Debra Salonen sets her contemporary romance BABY BY CONTRACT in the fictional Black Hills small town (fewer than 1000 souls) of Sentinel Pass, South Dakota, where the spinster (30's) postmaster, Libby, has decided to seek outside the local gene pool for a sperm donor to make her wishes of a test tube baby come true. She offers half of her share in the family-owned gold mine in trade and thinks she's hit the mother lode when out of the thousands of respondents, one man outshines the rest—a golden boy television actor/reality show host named Cooper.

Libby and Coop hit it off through emails and phone calls and she invites him to spend a week in Sentinel Pass seeing if they want to carry off this business deal. They both have issues of abandonment that strengthen their connection to each other. Coop's over-controlling, out of control gambling mother has just died, leaving him the target of her homicidal online bookie, and both of his ex-wives are upset to find that she'd bled Cooper dry before her death, leaving them without their monthly settlement checks. He never knew his father. Libby's parents both died when she was young, and both of the relationships she's had as an adult ended badly with each of the pigs telling her she was no good in bed. Coop overhears this last bit of scoop while acting as if he's asleep.

It's too bad Coop wasn't up front with Libby when he first got to town, because he's planning to mine his own mother lode by turning this whole adventure into a television sitcom. Oddly enough, Libby is less outraged by this news for her personal life, and more upset about how this will affect the lives of her own dear small town when Hollywood comes calling and brings an instant tourist industry with it.

Despite the absolutely implausible posting of this trade of sperm for gold mine on ebay (You really do have to sell things for a tangible cash price so ebay can get a listing fee as well as their commission when the item is sold.), BABY BY CONTRACT was a funny comedy within a comedy. When he isn't wooing Libby and making a baby the old fashioned way, Coop's translating every person, setting and conversation into possible fodder for his new show. I recommend it as a light read with one good dose of "I can prove you really are a sex goddess" bedroom gymnastics.

Susan Barton