The Con Man's Daughter

Anna Holcomb returns to the only place that felt like home to her, Redbird Creek, Texas. She is eager for a new start. Her dad is a professional conman, currently doing time, and she wants to shed any lasting connections to the days when she had been forced to help him score his cons. Once socially elite, she joins the working class at the country club where she used to hang with her rich, spoiled, mean-girl girlfriends. Only now, she’s hired help, an event planner for the club. Caleb Armstrong is the head chef at the country club’s kitchen. He remembers Anna from school, and still pictures her as nothing but a spoiled, rich, mean girl. Once he learns her dad tricked his mom out of a thousand dollars years ago, he is even more convinced Anna is nothing but trouble. Too bad these two have romantic feelings sparking between them.

Get ready for a creative and fresh new story! Former mean girl is now trying to make things right from her unwitting cons of the past, and her dad’s duplicity, but she just can’t seem to catch a break from Caleb. Chef Caleb comes across as someone very hard to like. Granted, he has reasons to distrust Anna initially, but he stubbornly clings to his memories of her past behaviors. His indecisiveness over whether he could dare to like her, yet still can’t trust her, wears thin after a while. While Anna is an adult with a professional career, she still cows down to her father, despite her dislike of him. The constant comparisons to “back in high school” grows tiresome as well. Synonyms would punch up the prose. Overall, this imaginative story carries a strong message about second chances.

Emerson Matthews