The Nine Month Plan

by Wendy Markham

Warner Books

Contemporary Romance

August 1, 2003

ISBN-13: 0446611751

Available in: Paperback

The Nine Month Plan
by Wendy Markham

"Nine months." He grins. "See? You definitely have time to have a baby for me." "You're serious about that, aren't you?" she says unexpectedly. "You really, really want to become a father." "I do." "Why?" He ponders that. "I don't really know," he says at last. "It just seems like something's missing from my life. I'm ready for the next phase, just like you are." "Yeah," she says softly. "Only my next phase and your next phase mean the opposite thing. Yours is about putting down roots, and mine is about pulling them up." For the first time, he thinks he hears a hint of reservation in her voice when she talks about leaving. "You know...you don't have to go, Nina..." "I want to go, Joey," she cuts in firmly. "It's all I've ever wanted." And he's always believed that...until now. Falling in love isn't part of the deal. WHAT'S A GIRL TO DO? Nina Chickalini has a plan: Get out of Queens. But something keeps stopping her. Maybe it's the four siblings she raised almost single-handedly. Or the family pizzeria she's running so Pop can take it easy. Or maybe it's her best friend, Joe Materi, who's just made an incredible request: Have his baby! Nina doesn't need another reason to feel tied down, but how can she refuse the man who's always been there for her? Getting in the family way turns out to be easy, and suddenly she's seeing Joe in a whole new light- his muscular arms cradling a baby, his sexy voice crooning a lullaby... With the entire neighborhood meddling to get them to tie the knot-and Joe looking like he wants them to tie the knot-Nina might have to stop dreaming of grand adventures and settle for something even better: love.



Wendy Markham's Bio

New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than eighty novels, best known for the single title psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Those novels and the women’s fiction she writes under the pseudonym Wendy Markham have frequently appeared on the USA Today, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookscan bestseller lists.

In 2015, Wendy published three new novels: THE BLACK WIDOW (February), which concludes her cyber predator suspense trilogy for HarperCollins; BLOOD RED (September), which launches Mundy’s Landing, a new psychological suspense trilogy for HarperCollins; and NINE LIVES (October), which launches Lily Dale, a new cozy mystery series for Crooked Lane. Also this fall, her Wendy Markham novel HELLO, IT’S ME made its television premiere on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel starring Kellie Martin and Kavan Smith.

A two-time finalist for the prestigious Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, she’s won the 2008 RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement, an RWA Rita award, and five WLA Washington Irving Prizes for Fiction.

She previously published a dozen adult suspense novels with Kensington Books as well as the acclaimed young adult series LILY DALE with Walker/Bloomsbury. Earlier in her career, she published in a broad range of genres under her own name and various pseudonyms, and has co-authored and ghostwritten for a number of celebrities.

Wendy lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband and sons. A vocal and active supporter of Relay for Life, Support Connection, and the American Cancer Society, she was a 2012 Ovarian Cancer Awareness month national spokesperson for the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation, and was a featured speaker at this year’s Katonah-Lewisboro Relay for Life. As an animal rights advocate, she fosters for various rescue organizations in the metropolitan area.