Kissing Games of the World by Sandi Kahn Shelton

From the Publisher

“A classic romance. . . . It’s been done countless times, but rarely as engagingly as Shelton does it in this novel.” –Boston Globe

Jamie is a free-spirited artist and devoted single mom with a slightly unorthodox living situation: in exchange for free rent, she looks after the grandson of her much older landlord. But when Harris Goddard dies of a heart attack–naked and splayed out in Jamie’s bed–nobody believes that he and Jamie were just roommates.

With the rumor mill buzzing and two small children to care for, Jamie’s life is further upended when Harris’s handsome son, Nate, a charismatic jet-setting salesman, shows up unannounced at his childhood home to settle the estate and reclaim the five-year-old son he left behind.

As Jamie’s and Nate’s highly guarded worlds collide, can these two damaged souls manage to see the good in each other . . . and maybe more?

“Shelton’s warm, sentimental love story is told with a tenderness of heart and a nurturing eye.” –Romantic Times

“Quite wonderful. . . . Like Anne Tyler, Shelton seems to possess a nearly boundless capacity for empathy. She has the ability to make us love her characters for their faults, not in spite of them.” –Connecticut Post

Publishers Weekly

Journalist Shelton's poignant third novel (after What Comes After Crazy) elevates the oft-told stories of opposites attracting and sons struggling against their fathers. The residents of Chester, Conn., assumed that 60-something Harris Goddard was up to his old womanizing ways when single mother Jamie McClintock and her five-year-old son, Arley, moved in with him and his five-year-old grandson, Christopher. Though Harris and Jamie's affections are purely platonic, the rumor mill begins to churn when Harris dies and is discovered naked in Jamie's bed. Everyone is suspicious of her, including Nate Goddard, Christopher's father, who shows up to finally claim his son with plans to sell Harris's house and take his grieving son on the road with him. As Nate tries to put his plan into play, the surprising Goddard family backstory unwinds and Jamie, also wracked with pain, finds herself attracted to Nate and vice versa. An absolute treat, Shelton's work rarely falters and is filled with realistic twists, complex characters and a moving conclusion. (Nov.)

Jane Jorgenson - Library Journal

Shelton's third novel (after A Piece of Normal) is an engrossing, charming, and often funny exploration of love and the relationships that result. Artist Jamie McClintock and her son, Arley, are happy where they are. A year ago, Harris Goddard asked them to move in with him and his grandson, Christopher, and share responsibilities. The arrangement works-until Harris drops dead from a heart attack. Suddenly, Jamie and Arley have to find a new place to live, and five-year-old Christopher is going to be uprooted from the only home he's ever known to live with his estranged father. Nate Goddard left his son in the care of his father after his wife was killed in a car accident, and somehow he has never managed to make his way back. Harris's death forces Nate to return home, and while he's eager to get to know Christopher, he hasn't a clue about how to be a father. The presence of earth mother Jamie and asthmatic Arley in the family home isn't making his attempts any easier. Though the slow-building and complicated relationship between Jamie and Nate plays a role in the story, it is the relationships between Nate and his son and Nate and his deceased father that allow the author to explore love in its different incarnations. Recommended for all public libraries.

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