Lucy Blake, a teacher at St. Augustine's, had stopped by the school museum for her daily viewing of the Reginald Diamond painting she had found at a garage sale, bought for five dollars, and donated to the school. But that painting of Reggie, the town founder, was gone. In her rush to the Principal, Roger Jordan, to reveal the bad news, she walked out of her shoes and fell on her keester on the wet St. Augustine turf.

Stomping the mud from her shoes, she wasn't looking where she was going when she collided with the new guy on the block, Father Xavier. One of the first things she noticed about said priest was how he was darting some very unpriestly looks at her. He was an amazingly tempting specimen, especially for a priest. But if he was a priest, what were all of those hot looks about?

Father Xavier was actually Xavier Lamont, private investigator, pretending to be a history teacher teaching the history of Diamond City. He'd been called by the principal, a longtime friend of his father's, to find the painting which was valued at fifty thousand dollars. He was thrown together with Lucy until finally the truth about what he was really doing there came out of the closet. And that's when they started investigating that missing painting in earnest, as well as investigating their mutual attraction.

FALLING FOR A FATHER is a sweet romance written by a teacher-the school scenes and the students ring true. Add together the "cute meeting," the missing painting, a few interesting characters like Lucy's housemate, Julia, and Snigger the cockatoo, a certain hideous fluorescent orange dress with pink velvet flowers, and some music by Dean Martin, and you have a Romantic comedy with its own unique Australian flavor. Catriona J. Reynolds also writes children's books available at Writers Exchange E-Publishing.

Reviewed By: Allie B
© August 2004