Coming Home to Texas

Plus-sized model Jodie Marsh had spent an incredible weekend with Texan architect Travis Whitaker. The weekend led to Jodie getting pregnant, however, which frightens her. Her career is just starting to take off, and she had just signed a contract with a cosmetics company. The company had made her sign a morality clause, and Jodie knows the company will fire her if she's an unwed mother. So Jodie shows up on Travis' doorstep, trying to convince him to marry her for convenience's sake. Travis Whitaker is a confirmed bachelor and doesn't plan on marrying again. He's already failed at one marriage, and he is sure that he doesn't want to go through that again. But when Jodie shows up in Texas begging him to marry her, he actually considers marriage once more. He doesn't want a love match, but he does want a real marriage, with Jodie living with him in Texas. Jodie's main focus seems to be on her career, however, and Travis is concerned that she's not focusing enough on the baby. Can Travis and Jodie find love and happiness with one another? This book was pretty good. Travis was a good guy, even though he was too domineering in some parts of the book. He admitted that he usually dated wasp-thin women who pretty much didn't have backbones of their own, so he didn't know how to react to Jodie some of the time. And Jodie, well, I liked her fairly well, but she could be a jerk at times, too. She had been alone for so long that she pretty much shrugged off any help anyone else could provide. It was interesting to watch them reconcile their differences. Like a previous reviewer, I also believe that some of the size references were forced. Jodie seemed to be confident in herself most of the time, but then she'd make some off-the-wall comment, like when Travis said he was going to pick her up and carry her, she said something like "you and what army?" I don't like it when people put themselves down like that. Still, she was more confident in her size and beauty than some women I know who are her size. Altogether, a good book, but probably not one I'll read again.

Plus size model Jodie Marsh arrives at the home of architect Travis Whitaker in Ranger Springs, Texas with news that she is pregnant with his child. Though a bit shocked, Travis handles the news quite well as to what their two and half days blind date in Monte Carlo ended up with. Jodie explains that she has just signed a contract as the "girl next door" model that has a morality clause in it. An unwed mother would nullify the contract so she wants Travis to marry her in a marriage of convenience. Travis is reluctant to wed, but agrees to do so only if Jodie agrees to try to make their relationship work in a real marriage. As they live as husband and wife expecting their first child, the couple falls in love with one another, but both fears admitting the truth to their partner. Contemporary romance readers will enjoy this fine tale that turns the marriage of convenience upside down as the couple, especially the hunk, wants to make it real. The story line is fun to follow as the athletic Jodie does not allow her size 14-16 to interfere with her gusto for life. Although the relationship between the lead couple seems to ideal considering its start, fans will be pleased with this quality novel. Harriet Klausner