Kissing Games of the World: A Novel

“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