Silhouette Special #991: Maggie's Dad

I love this book and have read it many times. Diana Palmer did a good job of making me feel what the characters were feeling. Antonia Hayes is a teacher who has returned to her home town when she is diagnosed with a disease. She fled home 10 years earlier when her fiance cancelled their wedding days before it was to take place. Her former fiance, Powell Long, believed her lying high school best friend Sally when she told him that a friend of Antonia's family was her sugar daddy. Antonia left town to finish college and Powell gets Sally pregnant and marries her. When Antonia returns to town to consider her treatment options her dad convinces her to take a job in the local school where she ends up being the teacher of Maggie's class, Powell and Sally Long's daughter. Maggie makes Antonia's job difficult and she and Powell fight reguarding Maggie's behavior. Maggie ends up getting Antonia fired and she returns to Arizona where she had been living for the past 10 years. Powell learns of Antonia's illness and follows her to convince her to seek treatment. This book was a great combination of romance/tear jerker. The only thing about it I didn't care for is that Powell is sometimes cruel and when faced with the truth about what happened in the past her should have been more contrite. And the fact that Antonia didn't move on with her life in the ten years they were seperated. I didn't like that her losing him kept her from attempting to fall in love again while he was married with a kid. But overall this is a great book.

This book in and of itself was a good read. It gave a good pull on the emotion. Make sure you read "Man of Ice" as the characters are mentioned in this book. It is my favorite Diana Palmer.

I love this story. I've reread my copy many times. The book is so sad during the first half, what with the longstanding misunderstanding between Powell and Annie, then the fears regarding Annie's illness, plus the difficulties being faced by nine-year-old Maggie (Powell's daughter), that you can't help but shed tears and feel anxious through the first 180 pages. Yet, you come to care for the characters so much, that you also can't put the book down until the last page. Tears to smiles - great book for reissue!

I've read this book a few times and cried my way through most of it. The hero and heroine are separated by lies and remain so for about ten years. During this time he marries the woman who separated them and has a child. Ten years later, his wife is dead and he blames his daughter for being a barrier between him and the woman he always loved. Enter his one true love, who is completely innocent of everything he accuses her of. He and his daughter make her life miserable because they are too stubborn to admit that they were ever wrong about anything. This is the story of two very stubborn people and a little girl no one likes. In the end though, they form one happy family.