Ahhh weekends. They are like chocolate but less fattening. They are like the movie Grease but without the singing. Well, who am I to say that? Perhaps John Travolta serenades you all weekend long. If he doesn’t, maybe he should. Let me start this out right… Just. For. You.

Close your eyes (But keep them open). Imagine Danny Zuko’s voice (But really it would be me singing to you and I sing best when I sing in Korean). Ahem…

~~Why, this book could be systematic, hydromatic, ultramatic, why, it could be greased lightning!~~

No one in this book is getting lots of tit in Grease Lightning unless it is by the unborn child Jess Bentley is carrying. The baby is all that is left of her first husband who was murdered only days after their wedding by a man strung out on drugs and looking for some easy cash for his next high. Left alone, Jess is a walking ghost until she finds that she is going to have this last piece of Frank. Unfortunately Frank’s disapproving and very powerful father has an interest in taking her child away from her.

Enter the last person Jess would think could help her and the person she least wants to count on: Dan Mullholland, brother to the man who murdered her husband. Dan has money, the best intentions, and he wants to provide for Jess and her child what her husband isn’t alive to give her any longer. Just when he’s talked her into accepting his hand out–an encounter with Frank Bentley has Dan issuing a statement that will overturn both their worlds. To protect Frank’s child, Jess and Dan will marry and he will adopt the baby to keep it from the cruel intentions of Frank’s father’s as well as all his machinations.

This story is incredibly visceral and dramatic. The first few chapters are actually very dark and Kristy K. James really expressed an alarmingly poignant look at the starkness of emotional devastation. She handles the polarization of the guilty and angry mind of a survivor in a disturbingly intimate recollection. As the story moves on and you find more history of Jess’s relationship with Frank and her budding relationship with Dan you can follow the line of thought she is having and relate to her easily. Jess is well developed character on the basis of how well defined her psychological profile is created, but the author actually adds a further incredible richness to the character’s layers by adding her relationship with her friend Emma. The friendship allows Kristy K. James to prove that Jess is capable of infinite trust, loyalty and love despite a rough upbringing and lack of firm foundation in her own childhood.

During all this with Jess, Kristy doesn’t leave Dan hanging. While Jess is dealing with the loss of her husband and and unplanned pregnancy, Dan is facing the breakdown of his family with the arrest of his brother and the guilt of knowing he had turned his brother’s request for money down that very night. Marrying Jess might be assuaging the guilt he feels in ruining the life she and her husband were just beginning to build, but in the eyes of his mother and sister, he has married the person responsible for his brother’s incarceration. Dan stands by Jess and puts his wife before everyone else and gives his all to a marriage he never anticipated or planned for because his marriage of convenience is real to him in every way. Yet through all the ups and downs he is constantly faced with the reality that at any time the fragile life he is trying to build with Jess can fall apart since it is built upon the grounds of another man’s grave.

The Daddy Pact is a clean romance. There is no touchy feely or dirty talk. Your grammy can read it and feel good without giving you H-E-2 hockey sticks. Even with all it’s doom and gloom beginning, the end result makes it a great Weekend Pick Me Up. Still no Greased Lightning but a whole lotta Hopelessly Devoted To You.

Kristy K. James’ Web Tracks: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, Amazon Author Page, Pinterest

(Follow all the updates for this blog by visiting and liking the All The Things Inbetween Facebook fanpage. You can also add Google+ All The Things Inbetween page. You can follow me personally on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Goodreads.)