Los Angeles, California - Present Day

All of Elizabeth Castle's plans seem to be coming true when her boyfriend Dan proposes to her. While her job as a fact-checker for a daytime TV show isn't the news anchor position she had hoped for, Elizabeth has managed to escape her small-town background. Running as fast as she could from her tiny town at age eighteen, she finished college with a journalism degree and has been searching for the right man living in the right zip code to marry, have two children with, and live happily in a house with a white picket fence and a dog in the back yard. Just when it all starts to fall into place, Elizabeth gets a phone call from a lawyer in her hometown informing her that her best childhood friend has died and left custody of her fifteen-year-old daughter, Tiffany, to Elizabeth. This is not in her plans.

Buck Platner, former high school football star, now an attorney in tiny Victory, California, is excited. He has finally spoken to Lizzie, his date from the senior prom and the woman he has thought of constantly since that one evening with her. He is hoping they will reconnect when he drops Tiffany off in Los Angeles. On arriving, however, Buck finds Lizzie angered at the prospect of a new daughter and engaged to another man. When Dan finds out that Elizabeth now has a child, he immediately breaks off their engagement giving Buck a golden opportunity to win over his dream girl. But, Lizzie has morphed into Elizabeth, a woman with a plan and specific criteria to be met by anyone in her life. Will Buck and Tiffany be able to find the warm and unique Lizzie under all of the superficial and goal oriented layers she has built around herself, or be left out in the cold?

With help from her best (only) friend Courtney, and a reluctant Tiffany, Elizabeth sets out to learn how to be mom, win back her perfect fiancé, and get her life back on track. She simply needs to focus and stop fantasizing about the yummy Buck Platner to make all of her dreams a reality.

NOT QUITE A MOM is a humorous look at a modern woman's dilemma on how to have it all when life keeps getting in the way. Elizabeth is obsessed with meeting her goals to the point of burying her wants and needs to reach them. Slightly immature and self-absorbed, it is fun to watch Elizabeth brought back to reality. Buck is a wonderful counterpart, kind, generous, and often a bit insecure; he finds himself falling harder for Elizabeth each time she makes a breakthrough. Scenes with Tiffany, Courtney, and Elizabeth are often hilarious and have a realistic banter found in close relationships. Terrific writing and storylines keep the reader's interest. The seriousness of Tiffany's loss is not slighted and helps further refine the characters' true identities. Fresh, fun, and new, NOT QUITE A MOM is a tale sure to please everyone.

Jennell