Kay Stockham
Autor de Man With a Past
Sobre El Autor
Series
Obras de Kay Stockham
Obras relacionadas
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Otros nombres
- Lyons, Kay (new work and clean/sweet versions of old stories)
James, Ivy (re-released steamy editions)
Stockham, Kay (Harlequin Backlist pseudonym) - Fecha de nacimiento
- 20th century
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- USA
- Lugares de residencia
- Kentucky, USA
Ohio, USA - Ocupaciones
- receptionist
computer lab tech
secretary - Premios y honores
- HOLT Medallion Award finalist
RITA finalist
Book Buyers Best Award finalist - Biografía breve
- Kay Lyons always wanted to be a writer, ever since the age of seven or eight when she copied the pictures out of a Charlie Brown book and rewrote the story because she didn't like the plot. Through the years her stories have changed but one characteristic stayed true— they were all romances.
Published in 2005 with Harlequin Enterprises, Kay's first release was a national bestseller. Kay has also been a HOLT Medallion, Book Buyers Best and RITA Award nominee. Kay's current Seaside Sisters Series is set in and around Wilmington, NC, and is available from Kindred Spirits Publishing.
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Reseñas
A Hero in the Making por Kay Stockham
Romance
Secret Santa left me with a renewed hope for peace throughout the world. I loved that Holly stayed true to the village's secret and to put her own happiness aside in order let tradition continue. I am glad that she did not wait for backup to come, but took off once she heard a pilot was going to crash near her village. I loved that Ty took over and helped his niece, nephew, and his grandfather as his sister had died, but as a former solider, he knew there was something strange going on in the village!… (más)
This book was deeply problematic on so many levels, especially considering it's a supposedly revamped version of Kay Stockham's A Hero in the Making under her Ivy James re-release penname.
The heroine, Skylar, was the high school/college sweetheart of Marcus, who, back in the day when he got drafted to the NFL, wanted her to DROP OUT OF COLLEGE AS A SENIOR to get married and follow him along to his NFL games while giving up all of her own dreams/goals/etc. This was clearly a point of contention, and should have been a red flag to her in general, but only really became an issue when he proposed to her in what was clearly an ultimatum, and she needed some processing time to deal with the massive red flags in the face of their young love. Hours later, she's ready to talk, except that she walks in on him having sex with someone else in their bed because it was such a blow to his ego that his ultimatum didn't immediately work that he decided she didn't love him and wanted to drown his sorrows in drunken stranger sex. This does not improve his chances of convincing her to give up everything for him. Two months later though: (1) she's realized she's pregnant, and (2) he has just been partially paralyzed from the knees down due to a game injury. She chooses to tell Marcus, hoping they can work things out since they'll have a child together (and presumably, but this is never addressed, hoping that that maybe she could be an equal part of their relationship now that he won't be in the NFL and that might make up for him cheating on her), but he screams her out of the hospital room and tells her he never wants to see her again.
Pretty much the only redeeming quality he has at this point in the backstory is that it's not explicitly mentioned that he told her to get an abortion during his tirade, but she definitely brings it up later in a context that doesn't discount that he might have said it. She moves on, marries a slightly older friend who has the resources to take care of her and her kid while enabling her to keep on track with her dreams. This man is also dying of a genetic disorder, but apparently is a top-notch dad while he's alive.
Flash forward 8 years, and Skylar is now a widow, and her son Cody is grieving the loss of the only father he's ever known by going a wee bit too deep into his imagination, and then rather violently lashing out at other children who don't want to play along. She opts to bring him home to the Montana ranch where she spent her late teen years for a change of scenery over summer break. Except....
Her family has never told her that Marcus moved back after his rehabilitation and is working on the ranch. Nor that he pretty successfully rewrote history in his favor while she stayed away caring for her husband, raising her child, and following her dreams. Despite her having told them at the time why they broke up, they apparently believe that he never would have cheated on her, so clearly they should believe him when he said he rebounded too quickly after she broke his heart by not, again, dropping out of college to play second fiddle to his NFL career when she only had one year left? Like, wanting to wait a year means she didn't love him?
It turns out we should have expected this sort of reaction though because the reason they even moved to Montana midway through her adolescence is because her father's friend Rick (whose wife had an affair with Skylar's dad, who died in the immediate aftermath of these events) decided to retaliate by convincing Skylar he cared for her and acting as a predator would. Rather than uh, I dunno, taking legal action for the grooming and statutory rape that most would consider a form of sexual assault, her mother apparently thinks of this as an ill-advised affair Skylar had as a problem child and an indication that she was into "older men," a preference she felt was confirmed by Skylar's marriage. Just, ugh. No wonder she didn't ask her mom for help when Marcus rejected her when she showed up pregnant after his injury. It's not like her mom is supportive, or can provide nuanced advice.
Anyway, now that Skylar and Cody have conveniently ended up in the neighborhood, Marcus wants them back and pretty quickly threatens legal action for custody then tramples all over her personal boundaries trying to convince her to give him another chance, by, wait for it, giving up everything for him again, and moving back to Montana and her super toxic "supportive" family. She doubts the sincerity of his expressed love for her due to his past words and actions, his lack of any communication in the past 8 years, the fact that he also kept Cody's parentage a secret until she showed up in town newly widowed. To her, it all seems a bit convenient that he's choosing to woo her rather than fight the custody battle. Curiously, she's getting it from all sides: now that her mother knows Cody's parentage, she thinks Skylar should have waited for Marcus to get his head on straight after his injury rather than accepting her husband's help. Apparently the grandparents would have bullied him into marrying her and that would have been so much better than having a grieving child who is obsessed with vampires since they offer him hope that his dad is still alive.
......
Oh, and in the end, Marcus gets an offer to train for the paralympics, so Skylar drops everything and moves to Atlanta so they can be a family together for his NEW athletic dream.
Just, I can't even. How much worse was this book in the Harlequin version if this is the modernized version??… (más)
The heroine, Skylar, was the high school/college sweetheart of Marcus, who, back in the day when he got drafted to the NFL, wanted her to DROP OUT OF COLLEGE AS A SENIOR to get married and follow him along to his NFL games while giving up all of her own dreams/goals/etc. This was clearly a point of contention, and should have been a red flag to her in general, but only really became an issue when he proposed to her in what was clearly an ultimatum, and she needed some processing time to deal with the massive red flags in the face of their young love. Hours later, she's ready to talk, except that she walks in on him having sex with someone else in their bed because it was such a blow to his ego that his ultimatum didn't immediately work that he decided she didn't love him and wanted to drown his sorrows in drunken stranger sex. This does not improve his chances of convincing her to give up everything for him. Two months later though: (1) she's realized she's pregnant, and (2) he has just been partially paralyzed from the knees down due to a game injury. She chooses to tell Marcus, hoping they can work things out since they'll have a child together (and presumably, but this is never addressed, hoping that that maybe she could be an equal part of their relationship now that he won't be in the NFL and that might make up for him cheating on her), but he screams her out of the hospital room and tells her he never wants to see her again.
Pretty much the only redeeming quality he has at this point in the backstory is that it's not explicitly mentioned that he told her to get an abortion during his tirade, but she definitely brings it up later in a context that doesn't discount that he might have said it. She moves on, marries a slightly older friend who has the resources to take care of her and her kid while enabling her to keep on track with her dreams. This man is also dying of a genetic disorder, but apparently is a top-notch dad while he's alive.
Flash forward 8 years, and Skylar is now a widow, and her son Cody is grieving the loss of the only father he's ever known by going a wee bit too deep into his imagination, and then rather violently lashing out at other children who don't want to play along. She opts to bring him home to the Montana ranch where she spent her late teen years for a change of scenery over summer break. Except....
Her family has never told her that Marcus moved back after his rehabilitation and is working on the ranch. Nor that he pretty successfully rewrote history in his favor while she stayed away caring for her husband, raising her child, and following her dreams. Despite her having told them at the time why they broke up, they apparently believe that he never would have cheated on her, so clearly they should believe him when he said he rebounded too quickly after she broke his heart by not, again, dropping out of college to play second fiddle to his NFL career when she only had one year left? Like, wanting to wait a year means she didn't love him?
It turns out we should have expected this sort of reaction though because the reason they even moved to Montana midway through her adolescence is because her father's friend Rick (whose wife had an affair with Skylar's dad, who died in the immediate aftermath of these events) decided to retaliate by convincing Skylar he cared for her and acting as a predator would. Rather than uh, I dunno, taking legal action for the grooming and statutory rape that most would consider a form of sexual assault, her mother apparently thinks of this as an ill-advised affair Skylar had as a problem child and an indication that she was into "older men," a preference she felt was confirmed by Skylar's marriage. Just, ugh. No wonder she didn't ask her mom for help when Marcus rejected her when she showed up pregnant after his injury. It's not like her mom is supportive, or can provide nuanced advice.
Anyway, now that Skylar and Cody have conveniently ended up in the neighborhood, Marcus wants them back and pretty quickly threatens legal action for custody then tramples all over her personal boundaries trying to convince her to give him another chance, by, wait for it, giving up everything for him again, and moving back to Montana and her super toxic "supportive" family. She doubts the sincerity of his expressed love for her due to his past words and actions, his lack of any communication in the past 8 years, the fact that he also kept Cody's parentage a secret until she showed up in town newly widowed. To her, it all seems a bit convenient that he's choosing to woo her rather than fight the custody battle. Curiously, she's getting it from all sides: now that her mother knows Cody's parentage, she thinks Skylar should have waited for Marcus to get his head on straight after his injury rather than accepting her husband's help. Apparently the grandparents would have bullied him into marrying her and that would have been so much better than having a grieving child who is obsessed with vampires since they offer him hope that his dad is still alive.
......
Oh, and in the end, Marcus gets an offer to train for the paralympics, so Skylar drops everything and moves to Atlanta so they can be a family together for his NEW athletic dream.
Just, I can't even. How much worse was this book in the Harlequin version if this is the modernized version??… (más)
This was fairly good. The story was pretty well written. There were bits that I felt could have been better. For example, the time line is pretty vague. You never know how long the hero has been in a wheelchair, how long ago was the accident. There was only one vague mention of how it happened. He fell off a horse? I think when you're talking about a life long rancher, you need to explain how that happened. Cowboys don't just arbitrarily fall off their horses. So more explanantion needed there.
Her emotions were dealt with better and were more believable than his. A girl he dated a little bit 10 years ago had such a hold that he'd loved her all this time? They weren't even childhood friends. Maybe if there had been a flashback of them together then it would have been more believable.
It was pretty good for all that.… (más)
Her emotions were dealt with better and were more believable than his. A girl he dated a little bit 10 years ago had such a hold that he'd loved her all this time? They weren't even childhood friends. Maybe if there had been a flashback of them together then it would have been more believable.
It was pretty good for all that.… (más)
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