Heiress for Hire
Erin McCarthy
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East meets West across time and tradition as three young American women and their Indian immigrant mothers take first steps toward true sisterhood, shattering secrets and sharing joy and tears in Erin McCarthy's
Heiress for Hire
.




Buy *Heiress for Hire* by Erin McCarthy online

Heiress for Hire
Erin McCarthy
Berkley Sensation
Paperback
304 pages
July 2007
rated 5 of 5 possible stars

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Heiress for Hire could be considered a sassy look at what happens, or could happen, when a spoiled socialite is forced to grow up.

Twenty-five-year-old Amanda Margaret Delmar is the heiress to the Samson Plastics conglomerate, and after asking one too many times for cash - in this case, two hundred for a manicure - she is broke.

Her father takes away her money, and after a brief period of losing it, Amanda takes a deep breath and decides that it is time to find a job. The job hunt begins with Amanda’s vision of walking into her own office at Samson Plastics, complete with a receptionist and few marketable skills, and ends with an offer from a farmer in Cuttersville, Ohio, the small town she’s run to for the summer.

Her retreat to ‘East Bumfuck,” as she describes the town, is only meant to last a few months, and Amanda considers her options. Hitch a ride back to Chicago and beg for a job, or stay in Cuttersville? She stays, and lasts two days at a local hair salon before she must begin her job search again. Simple so far, huh?

Enter Daniel Tucker, Jr. into the equation, and things get a whole lot more complicated. In the opening chapters, readers meet hardworking, single, twenty-six-year-old Danny, and he meets the eight-year-old daughter he hadn’t known existed: Piper.

The little girl has had a hard life and little love, especially after the death of her mother, Nina Schwartz, a woman Danny met during the summer between his junior and senior years of high school. With little trust in adults and an imaginary friend, Piper is a quiet, shy girl with secrets of her own.

Piper’s arrival and transition into family life with Danny is sometimes painful to read, from the multiple times she parrots the stepfather who dropped her off at Danny’s door to the secret she guards so tightly - what is under the grimy baseball cap she refuses to take off.

When Danny realizes he can’t complete work on the farm with his vulnerable daughter attached to his hip, he offers Amanda a job watching Piper and cleaning his house. His intense attraction to the heiress plays a role.

Add to the new job and caring for her tiny toy poodle, Baby, a ghost, and mysterious pennies, it would seem that Miss Amanda Margaret Delmar might not handle the changes well. But with an honest yet sassy attitude, she charges on while Danny and Piper adjust to each other, develop trust and create a routine.

Over time, Amanda goes through some changes of her own. She seems to learn what it is like to truly and deeply care for someone, for special people in her life, and she realizes early on that there are more important things in life than shopping and partying.

Throughout Erin McCarthy’s Heiress for Hire, you want to laugh, cry and cheer. McCarthy leaves a reader hanging on, intently wanting to know more about the characters she creates.



Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © April Bamburg, 2007

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