GRR Reviews Righteous Lies (Dancing Moon Ranch) by Patricia Watters

Righteous Lies relies on a few too-stupid-to-live moments to drum up the tension, but once you got past some of those "wait, WTF?" situations there are some ingenious plot twists leading to a good ending.

Grace Templeton is a widow, who managed to save some of her dead husband's sperm. Seven months later, fertility clinic informed her and another couple that there was a mix-up. Grace was actually pregnant with someone else's child, and the other woman has her dead husband's child. This was devastating news, as the other couple was hoping to make a baby and have stem cells to save their other child, but the husband's sterile (long story) and was using sperm from his twin, Jack Hansen. This mix-up of epic proportions left both couples reeling. Grace went into early labor due to shock, and when that was resolved, she ended up moving to Jack's working guest ranch where she can be watched 24/7 for any problems. Grace thought she can never love again, but Jack slowly worked his way into her heart, with his domineering but caring ways. But with Jacking hiding a devastating secret, how can she resolve her baby situation with Jack? And what will happen to that other baby?

Grace's TSTL behavior can be blamed on shock and disgust and grief, at least temporarily. The part about moving to Jack's ranch was not that well explained. Once the situation was properly setup (Grace in forced proximity to Jack, and the other couple's own problems) the story started to shine with a couple pretty good twists. There's a reason for Jack's implacable domineering behavior toward Grace (which I am NOT spoiling) and the situation did result in a happy ending all around for the most part. Originally I wanted to give this 5 stars, but the more I thought about it, I think the beginning could have been handled better. I enjoy the twists, but perhaps not the characters that much.

Category: Contemporary  (it's NOT really western)

Primary Plot: Two families are tangled together when they learned fertility clinic mixed up the sperm...

Overall Rating: 4/5

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