The Blessing by Jude Deveraux

What is it with me getting all these single mom stories? Anyway, The Blessing (which I now own 2 copies of, dangit!) is the single weirdest, most contrived premise for a story I have yet to come across, and in spite of that, I liked it enough to give it 3 stars.

Somehow, older brother Jason - the rich one, the responsible one - is duped into coming home to his Kentucky small town by his younger brother David. Jason has a history of helping David - now a successful doctor, mind you - since their mother died when David was a baby. Mind you, their father is alive and well, even though the ruse is that he's on his death bed, and it's right before Christmas. Not sure how long before - the whole book was so weird, and I never exactly understood where we were in time.

David convinces Jason he must move in with single mom Amy to take care of her child while David courts her - like, for a week, I guess. David can't stand the child, who turns out to be an infant. What a great way to start a relationship with a mom, huh? He convinces Amy that Jason is gay and temporarily homeless so that Amy will let him live there. WTF?? None of this made a lick of sense. Amy didn't have a clue that David was courting her either. Go figure.

Jason moves heaven and earth to do things for Amy's baby in ways meant to make her think she was just lucky, not that he had paid for it all. Although he kept saying he wasn't a billionaire, I kept thinking his coffers would be pretty much empty by the end of the book the way he was shelling it out.

It was weird too to have 2 full years go by with the conceit of putting "One Year Later" in front of 2 chapters. Jason of course was madly in love with Amy and baby almost from the beginning, and managed to get David out of the way, but Amy disappeared - for 2 years. So, in truth, it was a truly weird, contrived plot that made no sense while not being particularly humorous or witty. And yet I didn't hate it. So, 3 stars.