Kissing Games of the World
A Novel

What if the one person you can’t bear to be with is also the one person you can’t bear to be without? Jamie McClintock is a free-spirited artist and single mother who has at last found peace and freedom sharing a farmhouse with an elderly man and his young grandson. But when the old man dies suddenly, her idyllic country life comes to a halt, as the old man's estranged son, Nate, return's to claim the house and his child. Jamie can't stand Nate's sick, arrogant, salesman-like approach to parenthood, and Nate is irritated by her laid-back, earth mother view of life, not to mention her fondness for artsy knitted vests. This is definitely not love at first sight. But as they try to work out the logistics of raising their two little boys-reluctantly enduring everything from games of hide-and-seek with Daddy’s BlackBerry to breakfast of headless teddy bear pancakes-their lives become hopelessly intertwined. It's not until they've gone their separate ways that they both realize that sometimes love sneaks through the door you were sure you'd slammed long ago, and that rescue from the past can come from unlikeliest places.