The Water Baby by Roz Denny Fox

This was an unusual romance. It had a lot going on, but surprisingly the pace was somewhat slow. Just not what I'm used to from Harlequin novels.

Temple has been looking for his daughter for awhile now. She was kidnapped by his ex-wife and he hasn't heard from them in weeks. So when he sees a tv interview with his daughter's picture, he becomes alarmed when he realizes that she was on a yacht that was blown up. He rushes to Galveston to find her only to discover that she won't let him near her. The only one she'll let near is Daisy, the shrimper who rescued her from the ocean. Having regressed quite a bit, his daughter is only fit to be around Daisy, who had to put her life on hold to help this little girl. Temple realizes that he'll have to stay on the island until his daughter is better, but he's not sure what he thinks about Daisy.

Daisy is actually a really good character. I like that she's a shrimper, which is usually more of a masculine job. It gives her strength and makes her interesting. She's compassionate too, she'd have to be in order to take care of this little girl that is just thrust into her life. Temple on the other hand I didn't like as much. I thought he did way too much of a personality change in the beginning and the rest of the book on he just doesn't seem authentic. In fact, most of his motivations are really hard to align. The little girl, Becca, since she's mute most of the novel is more of a prop for Daisy to take care of too. She does have a little personality, but really Daisy is the lead of this story.

Explosions, rescued girls, gun shots; this is a pretty exciting tale. But it reads rather slow and drawn out because its more of a character building type of book. And that's just fine. I'm just glad it had a little excitement and a plausible storyline. Since this is a romance its got some risque scenes in it, but there's really only one and it goes pretty quickly. The rest of the reading is about Daisy interacting with other characters and taking care of Becca. There are a few scenes of Temple doing his thing, but not many. I think the length on this book was pretty good, any longer and it might have gotten boring, any shorter and I would have felt cheated.

Decent enough romance with some action. I can't say I'd really seek the author out, but I didn't mind reading this at all.

The Water Baby
Copyright 1996
299 pages