THIS HEART OF MINE

A free-spirited heiress gets tackled by a handsome quarterback in this gush-a-minute romance by gush-a-minute specialist Phillips, here making her hardcover debut.

Mollie Somerville likes “rabbits and fairy tale forests, china teapots and linen nightgowns.” Fittingly, she’s a children’s book illustrator, creator of Daphne the Bunny, a winsome critter whose antics are the talk of every kindergarten. But all is not well in the flowery meadow: Daphne has a nemesis of sorts, one Benny the Badger, whose bungling earns him her undisguised contempt. Apparently, Daphne is not an entirely fictional character. Mollie’s plucky little bunny is actually her alter ego, and the big dumb badger is really Kevin Tucker, the supersexy, reckless quarterback for the Chicago Stars, an NFL team once owned by Mollie’s father. At her request, Kevin bedded Mollie one boozy night, then had to be persuaded, none too gently, by the coach to wed her when she got pregnant because the condom broke. When Mollie miscarried, their hasty marriage went to pieces. Turns out that Kevin fears commitment! His teenage mother gave him up for adoption before she became glamorous TV actress Lilly Sherman, and he never knew his father. Eventually, Lilly explains that Dad was a rodeo rider and stuntman who died young—hence Kevin’s risk-taking propensities. Then Mollie explains her own troubled past: her cruel, overbearing father used his millions to control people, including his assortment of showgirl wives, and she had to relinquish the fortune he left her so that she could be a real person, with an actual life. Kevin and Mollie seesaw between love and hate until she throws a dead tuna into his private lake and he throws her in shortly thereafter. Will these star-crossed lovers ever find happiness? Just ask Daphne, if you can catch her . . . .

Warmhearted but formulaic love story, strictly for the fans.