REVIEW BY: Christie
TITLE: Finding Family
Series: Dreamspun Desires
AUTHOR: Connie Bailey
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 234 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2016
BLURB:
When you find your family, you’ll do anything to keep it. When Charles Macquarrie inherits a fortune and an international clothing company, he also inherits three young cousins he desperately needs help raising. By a stroke of luck, he discovers and hires Jonathan Lamb, who spent his life in a children’s home due to chronic illness, to be his nanny. If Jon thought a budding romance with his wealthy boss complicated his life, he has no idea of the hardships awaiting him when he’s charged with embezzlement and kidnapping. But even when threatened by accounting discrepancies and mob connections, Jon and Charles won’t let go of the family they’ve built together without a fight.
REVIEW:
After reading the blurb for Finding Family, I have to admit I was really excited to get my hands on this book. It looked great and that it had quite an interesting plot. I am also a huge Connie Bailey fan, since reading Until It’s Time to Go. Sadly, I was very disappointed.
Jon grew up in and now works for a children’s home, but the sisters who run the establishment wish for him to live his life outside of the little cocoon he has made for himself. So, he finds himself a job as a nanny for Charles Macquarrie, billionaire owner of an international clothing company. Since Jon has a natural gift with children, he immediately charms his three gifted charges, Madeline, Holland, and Julianna much to Charles’ relief. As it turns out, Jon is the children’s thirteenth nanny since their parents died in a plane crash.
Okay, so things are going great and Jon and the kids have gotten into a comfortable routine. Until things go very, very wrong. Charles is told that he and his family are in imminent danger and must leave town fast. So, they head to a remote cabin located several states away from their posh New York home.
The children must navigate living life with fewer creature comforts, and be, well… children. Jon tries to get Charles to be more active in his young cousin’s lives and see how very special they really are. And Charles needs to figure out what in the world happened, then try to salvage the pieces of a company that seems to be slipping right thru his very fingers, all while trying to come to terms with his growing attraction and affection to Jon.
Connie Bailey did an excellent job developing the children in this book. Their personalities are wonderful and I can see them in real life exactly as she describes them. Of course the two oldest, Madeline and Holland, would be a bit skeptical of Jon at first, and Juliana being only 5 is still guileless and absolutely adorable. Each one of the children has a separate and unique personality that the author captures quite well.
As for the rest of the characters and story, sadly they were ridiculously predictable and boring for the most part. We have seen all these characters before, many times and across all genres. Nanny falls in love with rich employer? Done a gazillion times over since Jane Eyre was published in 1847. Children go through copious amounts of nannies? Okay, anyone else think Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee? And, the list goes on. My guess is that the only fresh spin on a much overused storyline is that this time it is centered on a gay couple.
Am I disappointed with this book? Yes, very. Will I read another Connie Bailey book? Absolutely, yes. She is a great and talented author. Would I recommend this book to anyone? Probably not. Though, my opinion is my own and you may have a very different one after reading Finding Family.
RATING: 
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