Fugitive Mom

Psychologist Grace Bennett has foster-cared four-year-old Charley since he was 3 months old and given up by his drug-using birth mother. Now she wants Charley back and Grace must prove her unfit or lose the little boy she's come to love as strongly as if he were her own. When a judge rules against Grace, she has two choices: give Charley back or go underground.Ex-San Francisco detective Luke Sarkov owes Grace's cop father a favor, and he promises to help fugitive Grace get legal custody of Charley. He thinks he's still in love with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, but that's before he and Grace go into hiding.Luke has a lot of emotional baggage, but he is one sexy hero, and Grace is a perfect foil. As the suspense builds, so does their passion.Once again, Ms. Erickson creates a hard-to-put-down story. Highly recommended.

A child who had never known any other mother but his foster mom was on the brink of being taken away. A drug addict mother who wanted what was hers. A mother who only wanted to protect the boy that might as well have been born hers and a man who puts everything on the line for loyalty and love. FUGITIVE MOM connects Charley, Kerry, Grace, and Luke together by the bonds of love, hate, and power. Charley is a little boy with a lot of hope and love inside him. Kerry is a drug addict wanting her child. Together Luke and Grace struggle to find evidence that will allow Grace to take back Charlee from his neglecting biological mother and keep him safe with her forever. Along the way passion and love find there way into the hearts of Grace and Luke changing them forever.Luke is stubborn, hard, and unemotional but underneath, he is a man of emotion and vulnerability. Grace is proper and polite until someone dear to her is threatened and then she turns into a hellcat who is determined. They make for two intriguing characters and one different book. FUGITIVE MOM is unexpected and a delight to read. Ms. Erickson did an excellent job with this book!Romance At Its Best

Foster mother Grace Bennett lives every mother's nightmare the day she walks from court knowing her child will be returned to his birth mother in four days. Never mind that drug addict, ex-con Kerry Pope signed custody papers when the child was three months old, and never sent the first birthday or Christmas card. Never mind her questionable past or undetermined future. Grace leaves behind her position as a professor at the university, her cats, her friends, and every other vestige of her life to protect the child she loves.Rather than relinquish the child, she goes underground instead. With the assistance of her parents, her father's a retired police officer, she meets Luke Sarkov, the only person who can help her. Together they are determined to prove Kerry unfit, and regain custody of the child. Luke's own past overshadows his resolve to restore young Charlie to his mother. As he finds his reserve crumbling, and he begins growing closer to Grace, he comes to understand himself, and the marriage he must leave behind. As his unexpected feelings for Grace grow, he finds he can't resurrect the walls that have always protected his feelings and the past.Battling her own doubts about impending motherhood, FBI Special Agent Renee Paynter is on the fast track. She's determined to win a promotion with this case, little suspecting the impact it will have on her own values and decisions. She relentlessly follows Grace, absolutely intent upon following the law and her own professional benefits. That is, until realizes the full implications of her actions, not only professionally, but on her own values.Intense, heart stopping, and heart rendering, FUGITIVE MOM is a must read. With amazing insight, Erickson peals back the layers of three women, the biological mother, the adoptive mother, and the FBI agent assigned to enforce the law, to reveal the vulnerabilities of love gone wrong, and love gone right. The secondary characters deepen the story and add a touch of the dramatic, making FUGITIVE MOM very highly recommended.

The Boulder County Juvenile Magistrate Judge rules that four-year old Charles L. Pope will be returned to the custody of his biological mother Kerry. The ruling stuns a despondent Grace Bennett, Charles' foster mother, who realizes that Kerry never once took care of her child and shows no evidence of breaking the cycle of drugs and jail. Besides providing a happy and secure home for Charley, the psychology teacher and the child deeply love one another as if he came from her womb.As Grace leaves the courtroom, Susan Moore of Child Protective Services gives Grace a number where she can find help that the court refused to grant her or Charley. Grace calls the number on the paper Susan provided her with and soon begins an Underground Railroad ride with Charley to keep him safe. Former SFPD Luke Sarkov knows he can help keep Grace, now a fugitive, and Charley free and probably prove Kerry is unfit to be a mother, but he worries about his own heart as he and Grace fall in love.FUGITIVE MOM seems like a terrible title yet describes a strong story line that centers on the plight of foster parenting. Readers will enjoy the tale because Charley, Luke and Grace seem real. The plot falls short of the level of excellence of the Margolis book and subsequent Lange-Berry film "Losing Isaiah" as the characterization of Kerry remains so pathetic that no judge would grant custody even if the precedent relationship preference is the biological mother. Still, Lynn Erickson has written a fabulous romantic suspense tale that never slows down for even a page.Harriet Klausner