The Daddy School

Series · 7 books · 1997-2002

By Judith Arnold

Books in series

Father Found

1997

Jamie McCoy is the ultimate guy: thirty years old, carefree and professionally successful as the writer of a nationally syndicated humor column called “Guy Stuff.” Nine and a half months ago, he spent a week basking on the beach in Eluthera and indulging in a fling with a woman at the resort. Never did he expect to find the unplanned result of that fling - a healthy, wailing baby named Samantha - strapped into a car seat on his back porch, along with a suitcase full of diapers and infant apparel and a note informing Jamie that he’s her father. Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. But first things first. He’s never fed a baby or changed a diaper in his life. He doesn’t own a crib or a stroller. In a panic, he phones the nearest hospital, where neonatal nurse Allison Winslow takes his call and tells him about a class she teaches called the Daddy School. Classes on how to be a dad are exactly what Jamie needs. But when he attends his first class and sees the tall, earnest, amazingly beautiful and even more amazingly competent Allison, he realizes that he might just need more from her than her lectures on how to hold a baby. Jamie’s efforts to be a father to this precious baby touch Allison. His sense of humor amuses her. His striking good looks turn her on. But how can she trust the sort of guy who’d sleep with a stranger on vacation, without giving a thought to the consequences? How can she give her heart to such a reckless man?

Father Christmas

1997

Book Two of the Daddy School series, originally published in 1997. Arlington, Connecticut police detective John Russo is responsible to a fault. When his girlfriend got pregnant, he married her. When she walked out on the marriage, he committed himself to raising their son himself. But when his baby-sitter has a family emergency and must fly to California, John’s carefully rigged existence comes crashing down. He needs help, and fast. Molly Saunders co-founded the Daddy School to help men become better fathers. She wants to help John, not just by providing a space for his two-year-old son in her preschool but also by teaching him how to deal with his son’s demands—and teaching him that despite the occasional brutality of his work, he can still be a loving, vulnerable man. When it comes to learning the skills he needs to raise his son well, John is an A student. But Molly’s lessons in love prove much more challenging. Can a man who conceals a gun inside his undercover Santa Claus costume actually be the gentle, sensitive man of Molly’s dreams?

Father of Two

1997

Book Three of the Daddy School series, originally published in 1998. Dennis Murphy’s rambunctious seven-year-old twins swear he’s the best lawyer in Arlington, Connecticut. They don’t make his job easy, however. When the nanny he hires to watch the twins walks out on them one afternoon while Dennis is meeting with the opposing attorney concerning a libel case, Dennis is forced to bring his work home with him. Gail Saunders is a lawyer in the public defender’s office. When her former client, a Russian immigrant who’s had a few scrapes with the law in the past, implores her to sue the city’s newspaper for libel after his name appears in a front page article in connection with a series of thefts, she agrees to represent him, even if it means going up against Murphy and his prestigious, wealthy law firm, and even if it means she has to deal with his wild children once their nanny goes AWOL. Gail isn’t the sort to become all warm and fuzzy around children—especially imps like Sean and Erin Murphy. She’s missing the maternal gene, and the romantic gene as well. Just because Murphy is smart and funny and sexy as hell doesn’t mean she’s going to fall for him. She knows his seductive charms are merely tactics in his effort to win the libel suit. Being the sister of one of the founders of the Daddy School, Gail believes Murphy could use a few lessons in how to be a better father. But she’s got a few things to learn, too, and Dennis Murphy might just be the man to teach her.

Dr. Dad

2000

Connecticut Sometimes a Man Needs Help Learning to be a Dad... That's What The Daddy School is All About... Dr. Toby Cole, a widowed pediatric, is delighted. Lindsey, his exasperating ten-year-old daughter, is out of the doldrums at last. A new friend has moved in next door. Well, not a friend friend. Susannah Dawson is the retired thirty-two-year-old star of the hit soap opera Mercy Hospital, who has fled to small-town Connecticut to escape the Hollywood glitz. Toby's sure she can be a positive influence in Lindsey's increasingly rebellious life. Before long, Toby and Susannah have to acknowledge that they are a positive influence in each other's lives. In fact, they've fallen in love. Toby is smitten with Susannah. Lindsey is smitten with Susannah. It sounds ideal. It's not! Maybe what Toby needs now is the Daddy School - to help him sort out the jealousy and disloyalty he and his daughter have started to feel.

'Tis The Season

2000

Billy and Gracie Myers don’t believe in magic. Not even at Christmastime. They don’t believe in ghosts. Not even when they discover a haunted house in the woods behind their home. Filomena Albright lives in that house, and maybe, just maybe, she can bring a little magic into their lives—and their father’s. Evan Myers is overworked and stressed out, steering his chain of sporting-goods stores through the hectic pre-holiday retail season while raising his young son and daughter single-handedly. He has no time to think, let alone think about the woman who has taken up residence in the mysterious house through the forest. But when Gracie’s preschool teacher warns Evan that he’d better get some help, he turns to the Daddy School—and Filomena. That she dazzles him with her intelligence, her energy, and her beauty is irrelevant. She’ll be gone with the new year. For now, though, for these few weeks before Christmas, maybe she can be everything Evan and his children need her to be. Christmas is a time of magic, after all.

Hush, Little Baby

2001

A Daddy School book!When Levi Holt’s unmarried sister dies unexpectedly, she leaves him with a lot of grief - and custody of her six-month-old son, D.J. An architect with a demanding career, Levi knows nothing about child care - but he’s got to learn fast. He also has to keep D.J. from derailing his career. Corinne Lanier doesn't want to derail Levi’s career, but she wants him to come up with a new design for her boss’s vacation home in the hills of western Connecticut. Having grown up in a series of broken homes, Corinne doesn’t have much faith in love or family stability, and she doesn’t have much patience for an architect with a cranky, teething baby on his shoulder. Yet Levi and D.J. somehow erode Corinne’s certainty about what she believes in - and what she wants. With love, lullabies and a few desperately needed classes at the Daddy School, Levi might figure out how to put the fragmented pieces of his life back together. But will there be room in it for Corinne? And can he be certain Corinne loves him for himself and not for his precious little baby?

Somebody's Dad

2002

A heartwarming story in the bestselling Daddy School series.Sharon Bartell knows how to photograph people, even people like successful but camera-phobic fund manager Brett Stockton, who needs an updated portrait for his company’s annual report hates having his photo taken. Within minutes, Sharon has him at ease, laughing and shedding his self-consciousness. She’s so poised, so calm and focused - and so attractive. On an impulse, he asks her to accompany him to a fundraising dinner he’s hosting, and on an impulse she says yes...as long as she’s able to hire a babysitter. A babysitter? Brett hates children. He had to raise his younger siblings when he was just a child himself, and he never wants to deal with children again. He’s always been honest with women about this, and the reason he’s still single is that most of the women he meets want to become mothers. Sharon is already a mother. Widowed while pregnant, she has raised two-year-old Max alone. She devotes herself to her son while also running her photography studio - and also competing for a commission to do the photographs for her town’s 300th birthday celebration. A power player in town, Brett happens to know one of the birthday celebration committee members. He could get the commission for Sharon. But he wants more than her gratitude. He wants her. Without her son. But they’re a package deal, and perhaps with the help of the Daddy School, he can learn to love Max.

Author

Judith Arnold

Author · 54 books

Barbara Keiler aka Ariel Berk, Thea Frederick, Judith Arnold Barbara Keiler was born on April 7th. She started telling stories before shecould write. She was four when her sister, Carolyn, stuffed a crayon intoher hand and taught her the alphabet, and she's been writing ever since. Barbara is a graduate of Smith College, where she learned to aim for thestars, and she received a master's degree in creative writing from BrownUniversity, where she took aim at a good-looking graduate student in thechemistry department and wound up marrying him. She says: "Before myhusband and I were married, I had a job in California and he was working onhis Ph.D. in Rhode Island. I became ill, and he hopped on a plane and flewacross the country to be with me. Neither of us had any money, but he saidhe simply couldn't concentrate on his research, knowing I was three thousandmiles away and facing a serious health problem all by myself. He stayed fortwo weeks, until I was pretty well recovered. That he would just drop whathe was doing, put his life on hold and race to my side told me how much heloved me. After that, I knew this was the man I wanted to marry." Barbara has received writing fellowships from the Shubert Foundation and theNational Endowment for the Arts, and has taught at colleges and universitiesaround the country. She has also written several plays that have beenprofessionally staged at regional theaters in San Francisco, Washington, D.C.,Connecticut and off-off-Broadway. Since her first romance novel's publication in 1983 as Ariel Berk. Shewrote one novel as Thea Frederick, and since 1985 she writes asJudith Arnold. Barbara has sold more than 70 novels, with eight millioncopies in print worldwide. She has recently signed a contract with MIRABooks. Her first MIRA novel will appear in 2001. She has received severalawards from Romantic Times Magazine, including awards for the Best HarlequinAmerican Romance of the Year, Best Harlequin Superromance of the Year, BestSeries Romantic Novel of the Year and a Lifetime Achievement Certificate ofMerit for Innovative Series Romance. She has also been a finalist for theGolden Medallion Award and the RITA Award for Romance Writer of America. Hernovel Barefoot in the Grass has appeared on the recommended reading listsdistributed by cancer support services at several hospitals. Barbara lives in a small town not far from Boston, Massachusetts, New England with her husband, two teenage sons, and a guinea pig named Wilbur. Her sister Carolyn died of breast cancer in 1998.