A Summary
The Dad Next Door, a contemporary Christian romance novel by Stephanie Dees, is a story of second chances.
Claire Conley, a social worker, has inherited a mansion from her biological father. Claire, along with her twin sister Jordan, plan on turning the mansion into a foster home. After having had their own difficult upbringing after the death of their mother and their father turning them over to adoption, Claire has a heart for kids who have had difficult childhoods. However, when she moves into town and the community finds out that she may house “delinquents” in their safe town, she receives major push-back.
Joe Sheehan spent most of his childhood as a “delinquent”, until two caring people took him into their hearts and their home. Joe turned his life around. He joined the military and later was a lawman. When he returns back to Red Hills Springs to recuperate from having been injured in the line of duty, he soon finds himself joining Claire Conley in her effort to bring happiness to troubled children. But that also means that he has to face the cop who arrested him for stealing food when he was a child. That same cop, over a decade later, still harbors ill feelings toward Joe, making the situation very complicated.
My Thoughts
The Dad Next Door is the beginning of a series titled Family Blessings. Each story in the series focuses on a sibling in the Sheehan family. I enjoyed being introduced to Joe Sheehan’s family.
Stephanie’s writing was really fluid and enjoyable. Not overwhelmingly preachy, the story had just enough of an inspirational touch to it. Christian themes that appealed to me include forgiveness, mercy, and recovery.
The characters were written nicely: no overly perfect characters, but not overly flawed either. The transition toward a relationship between the hero and heroine was organic and smooth. Another aspect toward their relationship build that I appreciated was the fact that there wasn’t a crazy amount of what I call back and forth “He loves me, he loves me not” between the characters. For example….
One thing that annoys me about some novels is that first kiss where one of the characters says, “Oh, forget I did that. That was not a good idea.” Then maybe there’s a second kiss somewhere along the way, and the other one takes a turn sharing a grievance about kissing. I know that’s often part of the formula for romance writing, but I wish it wasn’t such a frequent formulation. Thankfully, Stephanie’s story avoids that back and forth!
Back to the topic—The Dad Next Door! The plot of the story was well written, and I found myself absorbed by the situations as they unfolded.
I look forward to reading the rest of the series. Stephanie Dees’ writing was very pleasant and enjoyable, and I highly recommend The Dad Next Door.
Visit Stephanie’s website to find out more about her books!
