Daddy By Default, Daddy By Design and Daddy By Destiny by Muriel Jensen, Harlequin American Romance, Who's the Daddy? I, Rating:

As I read all three books in the Who's the Daddy? I series close together it's easier for me to review them together since they're all connected anyway. Overall, the series was cute though I wasn't overly impressed with it. I kept reading more out of curiosity as to how the mystery of who the father was would get resolved. My biggest problem was the deception by so many people, allowing them each (at different times) to believe he was the father of twins only to have it yanked away. Not to mention, why didn't any of them think of DNA before jumping to the conclusion that they were the father? (Two of the three brothers are in the medical field.) They were entirely too accepting of being a father, each coincidentally, based on one night encounters.

In Daddy By Default we meet the twins, Michelle and Gabrielle (named for angels), and most of the McKeon clan. The mother abandoned the babies at the hospital after having them, listing D.K. McKeon on the birth certificate. The only problem was, all of the McKeon's are D.K., so which of the three brothers is the dad? Darrick is a hospital administrator and the first to be accused of being the twins father. He's the second brother (Duncan being the oldest, Dillon being younger than Darrick, there was a fourth son, Donovan, who died at the age of 6 of leukemia and then Dori.) He recalls a night he spent after a plane crash that he believes resulted in the twins. He hires is graduate school student sister, Dori, to help him as a nanny while he finds the mother and gets organized. He seeks out Skye Fennerty, who does not exactly deny or admit to being the baby's mother. She plays the game, though, and suggests they should get married when Darrick mentions he'd do whatever he could do for her and the babies. The scene moves to a beach house each of the brothers have bought, where Skye and Darrick promptly set about fixing up so it's habitable. Skye finds the bodice of a dress on a form and an antique looking oval mirror in the antique, which she begins to investigate believing it was given to the house by a ghost, Olivia, who's history is tied to Dancer's Beach. The couple get closer until Skye's ex-husband pays a visit and that's when things start to unravel for Skye. While Darrick and Skye are able to salvage their marriage, they are very saddened when they have to relinquish the twins to Dillon when he finally returns now that they know the babies are not Darrick's. Skye and Darrick plan to adopt soon. In this story, we meet the parents, Peg & Charlie as well as the neighbors, Bertie & Cliff Fisher, and the third brother's ex-girlfriend, Harper, who make appearances in all three books.

I rate the first installment a C-. I don't like the underlying deception, that someone would willingly lie to someone about being the mother of children and expect a marriage to succeed based on that deception. Darrick was far too forgiving a man - as was his family.

In Daddy By Design we meet Dillon and get to know Harper a little better. Dillon is a doctor who goes off at the drop of a hat whenever a doctor is needed for natural catastrophes. This is the source for the tension between Dillon and Harper. She was moved around from aunt to aunt as a child and wants stability, wants a home and wants Dillon in it more than he is willing to give her. It's established right away that Harper is not the twins' mother, but she does have a pretty life altering secret of her own that she's been keeping from Dillon. She works as a photographer and has established a successful business. Dillon suspects the mother is a female reporter, Allison Cartier, that he had a one night stand with after an emotionally brutal die culminating in an infant dying in their arms. Dillon is unable to get a hold of Allison as she's overseas doing an exclusive interview so he waits and begins to care for the babies as if they were his. He and Harper begin to reconcile their differences until her secret is revealed, one of her aunts exposes it not realizing what she's done. Dillon eventually understands why Harper withheld information from him and eventually Allison pays a visit to the beach house where it's learned she's not the twins' mother. She has a conversation with Harper that makes her realize she has to love herself first, someone else loving her isn't going to complete her. When her aunts make a statement indicating they didn't realize what a hardship it had been on Harper to be moved around from aunt to aunt as a child, they just each enjoyed sharing her so much they didn't know what else to do, her vantage point changes a little. Dillon turns down an initial call for medical help, sending someone else just as qualified, until he's called a second time. He finally understands through the help of Darrick, that in part what he's doing by running to each situation to help those in need is trying to save Donovan, something none of them were able to do as children. We see Darrick and Skye again in this book, with their about to be adopted son, David (who's family was killed in a car crash) as well as the parents and the neighbors.

I rate the second installment a C. Again, I don't like the deception. Harper's secret was a big one and while I did understand her reasons it still bugged me.

In Daddy By Destiny we've established who the father is, famous villain actor Duncan McKeon, but now we're not sure who - or where - the mother is. We do know from the previous books that the mother is a friend of Dori's who's on the run and in hiding. Her family works as cat burglars and she's trying to help her father get out of a prison sentence for a heist gone bad in New Orleans where someone died (her family never carries weapons so she knows her father didn't do it). Duncan comes to the beach house for a family fourth of July celebration, pulling up in a limo talking to Steven Spielberg about playing Arthur in a Camelot-type movie. Duncan, convinced he can't play a hero is inclined to turn down the role, but tells Spielberg he'll get back to him August 1 when he's had his vacation. He fights his attraction to Dori's friend, who has come to help him with the twins because Dori has to go somewhere for a couple of weeks, intent on finding the baby's mother. A woman he had a one-night stand with in a hazy state (pain killers and champagne) in a Mexican cantina at the end of a movie shoot. Duncan ends up realizing part of the reason he refuses to see himself as a hero is because he was unable to do anything for his brother Donovan. After helping the twins mother's family out of their legal problem, he realizes he may not be such a villain after all. It's discovered that not only Dori knew who the mother was, but so did the parents - and the parents knew all along who the babies belonged to as well.

I enjoyed the third installment a bit more than the other two, but rate it a C. Duncan was an interesting character, fun to get to know and see how he took to the babies. The idea, though, that parents would deliberately upset their sons life by letting them believe for weeks that they were a father and let them grow attached to those children knowing they would lose them when the real father returned I found a little far fetched. I will say I enjoyed the brothers very much. They each took to being a father of the mysterious twins quite well and despite the issues they had with themselves they were good men.

©Susan Falk and phantomroses.com