Without hesitation, and much to her boyfriend's chagrin, Ella drops everything in her life and heads to Houston to look after the baby while she hunts down Tara and the baby's father. Candy is now demanding that Ella come to Houston to retrieve Tara's newborn baby before she turns him over to social services. Not that she's necessarily following her mother's footsteps, but she's definitely been struggling with finding happiness and direction.Įlla has been out of regular contact with her mother and sister for a while and one day gets a call from her mother reporting that Tara left her surprise newborn baby with her and left without a trace. Her sister Tara, on the other hand, hasn't found her way out of dysfunctional as successfully as Ella. She lives with her steady boyfriend Dane in an Austin apartment, has a steady job writing an advice column for a city newspaper, a network of friends, and thinks she's got her happily ever after going on. Ella was smart and strong enough to get out when she could and after therapy, a lot of self reflection and a whole lot of will power has created a stable, content life for herself. She's insecure, unstable, selfish and has never been a positive influence on her daughters. Their mother, Candy Varner is not an easy person to live with. Ella and her sister Tara have been through a lot of craziness in their childhood ever since their father walked out on the family when they were very small.

While Smooth Talking Stranger is not without a few flaws and inconsistencies, the story is completely absorbing, entertaining, very sweet and definitely romantic.Įlla Varner has come a long way in creating a safe haven for herself since distancing herself from her atypical upbringing within a very dysfunctional family. Smooth Talking Stranger is the story of Ella Varner and how her world gets turned upside down and rocked all over the place by her sister's newborn son Luke and even more so by the man her sister implicates as Luke's father-one of Houston's most eligible bachelors, Jack Travis.

All three of Lisa's contemporary novels are told from the first person point of view of the heroine and each story is in essence the story of the woman's journey to discovering her true self and the road to her happily ever after. Smooth Talking Stranger is Lisa Kleypas' third contemporary romance novel featuring the lives and loves of the Travis family.

Smooth talking stranger