Ella McLeod has donated the past nine months of her life, and her womb, so her sister can become a mother. And now, just one week before she is due to deliver the baby girl her sister so desperately wanted, Keira tells Ella that she & Dmitri are getting ready to leave the country for a year to do aid work in Africa. And they don't plan on taking the baby with them. They've changed their mind.

Family is everything to Yevgeny Volkovoy. So when he hears that Ella McLeod is planning on giving up the child she carried for his brother and sister-in-law, he immediately offers to adopt the baby. The fact that Yevgeny is a single, billionaire, workaholic bachelor doesn't seem to faze him, he sees no reason why he should not raise the baby.

Ella has very strong beliefs on who should raise the baby -- a two parent family, preferably with another child, a dog, a house with a yard, and at least one parent who will be home with the baby. Unfortunately Yevgeny fits none of these traits, but he is not deterred. Ella and Yevgeny begin to spend time together as he gets to know his niece and a fledgling relationship starts to bloom. Can Yevgeny convince Ella to give love a chance, to give family a chance?

STAKING HIS CLAIM is a moving story of love and family, with well-crafted characters in a beautiful setting. Ms. Radley has done a wonderful job of creating this family dynamic and etching out their story and at the same time weaving in a love story. There were times I was incredibly frustrated with Keira and I wanted to shake Ella for letting her sister get away with acting the way she did, but I think all families have some of that to some extent; which just made STAKING HIS CLAIME a more realistic story to me.

Book Summary

When her flaky sister abruptly backs out of their surrogacy agreement, Ella McLeod is left with a newborn she's in no position to care for. She'll have to give the baby up for adoption. Enter Yevgeny Volkovoy—her sister's bossy billionaire brother-in-law.

Yevgeny won't let a Volkovoy be raised by strangers; he wants custody now. How can Ella be so cold as to deny him? Even worse—why does this woman warm his steely heart? He may be staking his claim on the baby, but Ella may stake a counterclaim on his bachelorhood.