Review: One Perfect Spring by Irene Hannon

I prefer her romantic suspense...

Keith Watson is the workaholic assistant to David McMillan, owner of a large construction company and funder of the McMillan Charitable Foundation. Keith is assessing applications for funding assistance when he finds a letter from a child with an unusual request: she wants him to find the baby boy the neighbour lady gave up for adoption twenty-plus years ago.

Keith is reluctant to waste his time on such a matter, until he meets the child, Haley Summers, and her mother, Claire. He’s attracted to Claire, but she has loved one man who gave up his family to chase his career, and she sees the same ambition in Keith. But she needs help around the house, and he keeps showing up and offering to help …

I’m a big fan of Irene Hannon’s romantic suspense novels, but this is the first of her pure romance’s I’ve read. While One Perfect Spring is a solid romance, I have to say I prefer her romantic suspense novels. They’ve got that extra ‘zing’ factor that, for me, lifts them beyond the ordinary. It wasn’t that One Perfect Spring wasn’t good—it was—I just didn’t enjoy it as much.

My main problem was Haley. There’s a saying in TV that you should never act with pets or children, and while pets are usually winners in fiction, children are more hit-and-miss. Haley is supposed to be eleven, but a lot of her conversation and attitudes make her seem much younger. This, to my mind, detracted from the romance.

I also thought there was too much emphasis on Dr Chandler (the neighbour who was searching for her adopted child), and David MacMillan and his family problems. Yes, it all added to the story, but this took up valuable space where there should have been a suspense subplot (*wink*).

Overall, this was a solid romance (well, double romance), just not Hannon’s best.

Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Irene Hannon at her website.