Kathryn wrote in with a very simple query:
Are there any good secret baby books out there?
I was bouncing around listopia on goodreads. They have lists for everything: best gay cowboys,
best friends-into-lovers, best use of glass dildoes (okay maybe not the last
one, though there are sex toy ones). Despite the variety, there are no
romance novels with secret baby lists, or romance novels with any baby
lists. So I put to you – food for thought – are there any GOOD secret baby
romance novels out there?
This is a good question! I’m usually baffled by Secret Baby romances – HOW and WHY do you keep them a secret, for heaven’s sake? Mostly HOW—babies are LOUD!
The few I have tried have been rather contrived, or surprisingly fun and awesome. Lisa Kleypas’ Smooth Talking Stranger is something of a secret baby romance – it plays with the trope, for sure. And RT has a list of them, too, that they recommend.
But since the Bitchery pretty much knows damn near everything, I figured you could help Kathryn out: which Secret Baby romance is the Bestest One?
I have to second “Three Nights” by Debra Mullins. I liked it because it wasn’t an intentional secret baby, she tried contacting the baby daddy. I’ve read a couple of ripoffs of various plot devices in this book lately but the original is still the best.
I have to third or fourth “Not Quite A Lady” by Loretta Chase. For me, it was one of the most adult treatments of the secret baby romance.
Still the One, by Robin Wells has been one of my recent faves. This has the secret baby who was given up for adoption, grows into a troubled teen who finds her birth father, and together they confront and develop a relationship with the birth mother.
Also loved the Rachel Gibson books, and I totally second Underfoot by Leanne Banks.
I’m not a big fan of secret babies as more often than not I think the heroine is just being a selfish jerk and don’t buy her excuse for not telling the daddy.
That said, I do enjoy a well written secret baby story. Not all of these have a truly valid reason for keeping the baby a secret, but I believed the HEA at the end, so… I would recommend:
The Brennan Baby by Barbara Boswell
A Marriage of Convenience by Georgia Bockoven
A Bride for Saint Nick by Carole Buck
Found Father by Justine Davis
Our Child? by Sally Tyler Hayes
A January Chill by Rachel Lee
Point of No Return by Rachel Lee
Somebody’s Baby by Marilyn Pappano
Honest Illusions by Nora Roberts
72 Hours by Shannon Stacey
Run to the Moon by Sandy Steen
Son of the Sheriffby Sandy Steen
Fathers and Other Strangers by Karen Templeton
Echoes of the Garden by Marilyn Tracy
Another Chase with this as a minor plot twist—Lord of Scoundrels.
One pregnancy/baby book I really like is One Night Stand by Julie Cohen. The heroine actually does everything in her power to find the father, unfortunately it was a drunken one night stand and she doesn’t remember his name and has only a very vague idea what he looks like. There are a couple of surprises in this one and it’s very sweet.
There was a recent Harlequin Intrigue called Daddy Devastating (ignore the stupid title) by Dolores Fossen involving a secret baby that I quite liked. This baby is so secret that the hero doesn’t even remember having had sex with the mother.
Another good Harlequin Intrigue involving a secret baby is A Baby Before Dawn by Linda Castillo, who is now writing bestselling thrillers set in Amish country.
The Mommy Miracle, a Harlequin Special Edition by Lilian Darcy, has the heroine waking up from a prolonged coma to find herself the mother of a secret baby. Unfortunately, she didn’t even know she was pregnant.
Harry Dresden, the hero of Jim Butcher’s longrunning urban fantasy series, found out he was the father of a secret child in last year’s installment Changes. This is not a spoiler, he finds out in the first few pages. It’s a really good story, too, with a heartstopping cliffhanger ending.
Antispam word: reason42
There are 42 possible reasons for keeping babies secret
“A Speaking Likeness” by Sheila Bishop. One of my all time favorites! Takes the trope and twists it into something wonderful.
The second book in Maya Banks’ KGI series features a secret baby. Well, a secret pregnancy anyway. It’s called No Place to Run and since the heroine is still pregnant, the fact that it was a secret is plausible. I really like Maya Banks when she’s not writing menage.
Does a secret baby count if the baby is 13 years old? Lauren Dane’s Brown family series ends tomorrow with Adrian discovering he is the father of a 13 year old.
One of the Liaden books by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee has a secret baby, but I forget which book it is.. (ah, yes – Local Custom)
read about the books at Heartbreakers and Heros
or here, if the link doesn’t work (my html is rusty)
http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2011/08/making-the-case-for-romance-sharon-lee-and-steve-millers-liaden-universe
One secret baby romance that I loved was Addicted by Charlotte Featherstone. It was a roller coaster of emotion type of read especially concerning the secret baby. A great read!
And I will second the Lorelei James recommendation above. A great contemporary romance author!
I thought of Kate Carlisle’s Sweet Surrender, Baby Surprise. It’s the second book of her Duke Brothers trilogy.
If you are willing to read a story on the secret baby theme where the heroine was/is the secret baby, you could read Jo Beverley’s A Lady’s Secret.
The other two I thought of that really don’t involve secret babies as much as children with secret parentage are Elizabeth Boyle’s How I Met My Countess or Mary Balogh’s At Last Comes Love.
I second Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson.
The Girl with the Golden Spurs/Gun by Ann Major are two books centred on two sisters finding love with two brothers, but there’s a lot of confusion in terms of who’s the father, who’s the mother, who loves who, on so many different levels, LOL. The second one is better than the first, but overall I’d say they’re both good enough.
The Billionaire’s Baby Bonus by Paula Roe has a great twist on the secret baby trope.
Secret Duchess by Gayle Wilson. Another Wilson book – Lady Susan’s son- hero thinks heroine has a child- but it’s her sister’s – good plot device.
Okay, I didn’t see any reference to the two secret baby stories with which I am familiar.
(1.) Johanna Lindsey wrote a book about a girl who is married for a couple of days to a guy who desserts her and returns to his home in Hawaii. The wife follows him, not knowing she is pregnant. She gives birth on the islands and hides the baby from him for reasons I just don’t remember. I don’t remember the title of the book either, but it was a good story!
(2.) Shirlee Busbee wrote a story that takes place mostly in the southern U.S. where the heroine gives birth and never tells her husband about it until he shows up at an inopportune time and discovers the child. It was one of those old men are nasty to the women they supposedly love stories. I don’t remember its title either.
I applaud the Liaden recommendation. I finally listened to GrowlyCub and read them; Local Custom is very much a romance, and Scout’s Progress as well, if read with its sequel Mouse and Dragon (romance readers should be warned that the HEA is not fully established in Scout’s Progress).
I prefer secret babies revealed as a trope, where the father has time to find out and get involved, and I can believe that his feelings for both mother and child warrant the HEA. A good one of those was the one serialized on the SBTB-DA TBR app. a Blaze called Aftershocks by Jill Shalvis.
I have to admit to a certain weakness of the secret baby trope. In addition to the Rachel Gibson and Susan Elizabeth Philips recommendations, above, I’m a huge fan of Janet Chapman’s “Tempt Me if You Can”. It’s not the heroine’s secret baby, it’s her deceased sister’s and I loved the scenes with the hero getting to know his son and the baby’s mother. Also, Susan Mallery’s “Almost Perfect” because the mother really thought the father knew all that time and didn’t care. Of course there is some asshat-ery as the book goes on, on the hero’s part after he finds out about the son, but the book was still pretty good.
Hot & Bothered by Susan Anderson has a secret baby with a good reason why she never told the father—didn’t know his first or last name, just a nickname. As an FYI, it’s the second to last book in a series and I didn’t realize that when I picked it up. It works well as a stand-alone but if you’re a little OCD, like me, you should grab the other two first.
What I’m always amazed about is how many heroines apparently have had babies but the hero can’t tell this from their post-baby body. What? No stretch marks? No episiotomy scar?
One of my own books, All That Mullarkey has a kind of secret baby. In that Cleo won’t face the fact that she’s pregnant and by the time she does, Justin has exploded with anger and left the country. (The message here is that it wasn’t her fault! If Justin had just controlled his temper, everything would have been fine. But the book much shorter.)
Lady Sparrow by Barbara Metzger is an interesting variation on this trope: widow discovering her late husband’s secret child(ren).
Does Nobody’s Baby by Mine Susan Elizabeth Phillips count? Also, one of the Fool’s Gold romances (forget the name now) had a Secret Baby.
You could try Solo by Jill Mansell -it’s a modern romance which I read and loved in the early 90’s. The details are a bit hazy in my mind after all this time and I can’t remember how long she keeps the secret for, but either way it’s a fab and funny book. Her website blurb is as follows: “When Tessa Duvall, a struggling artist, reluctantly agreed to accompany her best friend Holly to a party at the elegant Charrington Grange Hotel, she had every intention of sneaking off early. For parties full of strangers bored the knickers off Tessa and this one proved to be no exception – until she encountered Ross Monahan, whose wicked reputation was as high profile as the hotel he owned and ran with such panache. But whilst Holly set about ensnaring his reluctant brother Max, Tessa simply accepted Ross for what he was, a sensational one-night stand…until she realised, weeks later, that one-night stands can have far-reaching consequences… “. I’ve read every book Jill Mansell has written since then and they never disappoint.
@sweetsiouxsie, that would be “Gypsy Lady” & not only did he not know about the baby, he didn’t believe it was his. Oh, how I loved that book….
Wasn’t there a Judith McNaught where the H/H meet and hook up early in the book, and she gets pregnant but before she has a chance to tell him they get into a horrible car accident, and her dad doesn’t like the hero so the dad tells the hero that his daughter died, but of course she didn’t and she’s preggers with the hero’s baby and thinks the hero left her, Then the book fast forwards several years and hijinks ensue as they figure out they didn’t betray each other and still love each other and her dad is really a douche. I can’t remember the name, and it may not even be Judith McNaught, but I do recall enjoying the book a lot. So, um, this is more like a HABO than an actually helpful post. Sorry ‘bout that.
@LMG Crap, now I want to read that book…
Hey Sarah – commenting to your latest DBSA podcast post isn’t working. It looks like the same problem as before (sorry, it’s the web designer in me, I can’t leave this alone). I saw DreadPirateRachel’s comment to the post on the recent comments Who Said What? section, but couldn’t link to it. And the spam check field isn’t showing on the comments page.
Majesty, Mistress…Missing Heir by Caitlin Crews. It’s a Harlequin Presents and I just loved it. As in, crying like a baby in public loved it.
@LMG & @Amber – ZOMG, one of my FAVORITES of Judith McNaught. It’s Paradise. Freaking amazing.
@LMG, @Kristi,…..I LOVE that book.
@Amber You should totally read Paradise.
i don’t read too many secret baby romances…actually i only remember 3. there was one with a baby with big blue eyes like the hero’s, which convinced everyone that he was the hero’s kid, but he wasn’t. this one, i wasn’t a fan of at all.
the 2nd was the final book in Maureen Child’s Candelano series. This one I liked. Hero was a forced to retire football player, who received a letter from a little boy claiming to be his son. The heroine was the kid’s foster mother.
the 3rd book is The Perfect Lie by Dinah McCall. Hero gets heroine’s sister pregnant, but the girl’s rich daddy doesn’t approve, and threatens to cut her off if she doesn’t break it off with the hero. Of course, she tells the poor guy that she aborted their baby and their relationship is over. Skip ahead a dozen years, the girl and her daddy are killed and the kid is kidnapped by thugs. The heroine (dead girl’s younger sister) finds the hero (I believe he’s either CIA or DEA) and clues him into the existence of the kid. Turns out someone out there knew the kid was his and used him to get to the hero.
@LMG, as others have noted it’s McNaught’s Paradise. The heroine does tell the hero about the pregnancy and they get married, then he goes to work abroad where he can make more money to support the family or whatever; her father makes sure their letters aren’t delivered, then she either miscarries late or gives birth to a premature baby who dies, I’m not sure which. Hero shows up at the hospital only to be told she had an abortion. By the time they meet again years later, both feel wronged and betrayed and much angst ensues.
What about Susan Elizabeth Phillips It Had to Be You?
So, the Fool’s Gold one mentioned earlier: Almost Perfect by Susan Mallery has a secret baby, and it was a decent read.
Both Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Kiss an Angel and lisa Kleypas’s Suddenly You had a splash of secret baby, and I really really really love those two.
Also, Jill Shalvis has Aftershock and The Sweetest Thing.
And if you want a totally ridiculous one, Baby of Shame by Julia James is sooooooooooooooooo fantastically ridiculous. Sara Morgan also has some less ridiculous Harlequin Presents involving secret babies.
Edit: Sarah Morgan.
So your looking for a good secret baby story?? I got a really great one for you to check out – The Zillionaire Vampire Cowboy’s Secret Werewolf Babies
By – The Nine Naughty Novelists – Kelly Jamieson, PG Forte, Juniper Bell, Skylar Kade, Erin Nicholas, Kinsey Holley, Sydney Somers, Kate Davies, & Meg Benjamin.
This story is hysterical! If your looking for a good laugh, lots of action, and a great time THIS is your book! AND it’s only $0.99!!!! you can’t beat that 🙂
THE THORN BIRDS is so a secret baby book. The reader knew—the dumbest daddy on the planet was Father Ralph. Everyone saw except him!
I agree with Dawn, The Zillionaire Vampire Cowboy’s Secret Werewolf Babies, is amazing; it’s a quick, hysterical read at a price you can’t beat!
@Donna……thank you for the title “Gypsy Lady”!!!
I read Busbee’s newest trilogy about two years ago and I really liked it so I bought some of her backlist which in cluded “Gypsy Lady” and its sequel. I can’t remember the name of that book either, but I like Busbee’s books.
Does Nobody’s Baby But Mine (Susan Elizabeth Phillips) qualify? Granted, it’s mostly my favorite for the truly evil thing that was done to a perfectly innocent box of Lucky Charms, but it does have a baby in question.
I feel like some people are just naming books with secret babies. Please clarify or mention shit to avoid.
okay on the SEP front:
Nobody’s Baby But Mine had a secret pregnancy whose existence was soon discovered and verified. (Everyone was there when the baby was born.)
It Had to Be You didn’t have any babies in it except for the epilogue.
Kiss An Angel works but it’s a bit of stretch since he knew it was possible. Also other plot points not my favorite.
Also SEP’s fancy Pants is not my favorite. Her stuff is hit or miss.
Now as I understand it a secret baby book is when the woman has the baby and doesn’t tell the father or people who would tell the father. The baby is allowed to be completely grown-up, but the mother has to be at least six monthes pregnant.
A bit harder to pull off in the facebook era. (yes people are this dumb. A wife discovered her husband was a new bigamist after seeing the pictures of his second wedding on Facebook. )
The bigger problem for me is why. I personally think a lot of these scenarios are morally sketchy. I think in most cases the guy deserves to know he’s going to be a father. If he doesn’t he probably isn’t hero material.