Grainne wants three things: her
mother's love, a baby, and Rafe Byrne--not necessarily in that order. On Rafe's
wedding day, Grainne is keen for a fresh start—why not settle for the nice guy
in the wings who’s successful, and mad about her too? Just as Grainne is poised
to get her future on track, her family pressures her to leave Dublin for the
quaint little village of Ballydara, to help her mother launch a B&B. Given
her turbulent relationship with her mam, the last thing Grainne wants to do is
live with her.
But when Rafe, her old flame, turns up in Ballydara a free
man, Grainne takes a page from her favorite fictional heroine Scarlett O’Hara:
she plunges into a no-holds-barred pursuit of the child she wants so badly. But
Grainne soon discovers that opening her heart—to Rafe, to the prospect of
motherhood, and to her mother—is the biggest risk of all…
You'll find more about the Village of Ballydara series at www.susancolleenbrowne.com...but in the meantime, here's a sample of Mother Love:
The Gallagher Post
Gai Lannigan’s Blog—Girl
Talk
Baby Hunger
Lust for a guy is one
thing. But lust for babies is a whole different story. And a lot harder to
satisfy. The old cliché about biological clocks is just a polite way to
describe waking up one morning, realizing you’ve wasted your youth, and now you
can practically feel your eggs shriveling. The viable ones, that is. The duds
are probably sashaying merrily round your ovaries, snickering at their rapidly
dissolving sisters.
If you’ve baby hunger but
no daddy material on the horizon, you’re probably thinking, how can I joke
about this? I see your point. Your average baby fanatic is actually a bit of an
addict, with a terrible craving for her fix. The trouble is, like other common
addictions—say, drink, drugs and gambling—the temptations of babies are
everywhere. (Which only increases the baby longing.) Another painful truth is
that baby-cravers often gravitate toward careers that provide maximum contact
with babies, like pediatricians, or playschool teachers. Unfortunately, jobs
like that give baby-lusters minimum contact with what they can’t do without:
unattached sperm-providers.
You might be one of the
lucky ones, though, with several paternal prospects to choose from. But what if
you’re keener on having a baby than having a man? If word gets out, people will
think you’re quite heartless, if not altogether mad. Which bothers true
baby-lusters not a whit. Your road to motherhood couldn’t be simpler: You pick
a fellow you know will drop his drawers for you, no questions asked.
Unfortunately, any guy who’ll sleep with you at the snap of your fingers is a
guy who’s had it off with every available female who’s crossed his path—not the
sort you’d want condom-less.
You could always bide
your time and wait for the perfect, baby-making love machine. But who knows how
long that could take? So my advice is to go for a nice guy with a presentable
gene pool, who won’t make a scene when you cool the relationship. After the
deed is done, that is. Trouble is, nice men want to do the decent thing…
One
“You don’t think Gai really wants a baby, do you?” Justine
Egan tapped the screen of her mobile, then drained her pint.
“Don’t tell me you’re
reading that blog again.” Crunching a shortbread finger in a dim corner of
O’Fagan’s, I stared enviously at Justine’s glass. A pity I’d no head for drink.
Today of all days, I’d have liked something to take the edge off. “Aren’t you
meant to be checking recipes for birthday cake?”
“Not now.” Justine thrust
her phone across the scratched wood table. “Check out today’s Girl Talk.”
“I came to the pub to
relax,” I said as she went to the bar for a refill, “not read about angsty
girls with too much time on their hands.” But to please Justine, my flatmate
and best friend, I scanned her favorite blog, helping myself to a third
biscuit. As if a self-induced sugar coma might help me forget why I was
mainlining the stuff in the first place.
You know how it is—the
day your ex-boyfriend gets married, it’s like a huge insect squished on the
windscreen of your life. It’s not like you care
or anything, it’s just that the oul‘ bugger is blocking your vision.
O’Fagan’s wasn’t the best
place to clear your head either, with strings of Guinness flags hanging
listlessly from the ceiling and ancient, smoke-stained paneled walls. And
today, the place felt more claustrophobic than usual—a far cry from the
flower-bedecked, sun-drenched nuptials I could see in my mind’s eye half a
world away. Not that I wanted to be shackled to some guy for life, but there’s
something about people you know tying the knot that gets you pondering your own
future. Even if it’s a wedding you’d no interest in attending, if they
prostrated themselves at your feet and begged you...
