One of the absolutely worst tropes in romance. Unless there is some legitimate reason why the heroine was unable to get in touch with the hero about his child I can't read the book. It makes me so angry. I only end up reading it if it's a surprise in the book. Which I REALLY don't appreciate.

I automatically hate the heroine and she is irredeemable to me. I spend the book wishing she would just go play in traffic. All I can think of is what the hero missed out on with his kid. The lies and just what a horrible person the heroine is to have done something like that. It ruins any romance the author tries to create.

I don't know why I read these but I do. My most recent was His Pregnancy Ultimatum by Helen Bianchin. The idiot heroine was SHOCKED to discover that fathers have parental rights and until the end she kept forgetting and being shocked again. Plus she was horrible to the hero and he treated her like a princess. She was truly loathsome.

Reply to post #2 (show post):
Ugh, no. That's is something it seems happens in all of these stories, that the hero treats the heroine like a queen even though she's done this terrible, unforgivable thing. I don't get it.

And if he does have the nerve to be pissed off he gets lectured by a series of people until he relents and forgives her. It's nauseating.

I HATE this trope but I've read it a lot.

As mentioned, I let it go sometimes because the heroine has some legit excuse why she couldn't tell the hero but when she just runs away knowing that she's pregnant and deliberately hides the fact that he has a child then when he finds out years later she justifies her actions...no can do!!! There is never justification for it unless we're talking about someone who is abusive or a pedophile...and obv these heroes are completely the opposite of everything bad.

Reply to post #4 (show post):
Yeah, I was trying to think of some reason she couldn't tell him about the kid, but there are none that would still allow the hero to be a romance hero. Unless it was some situation where he was setup and everyone thought he was guilty.

One of the things I like about m/m is that it's a lot harder to have a Secret Baby--although I did see one book that managed that plot. In a way I think it was actually worse than the usual Secret Baby nonsense because one of the MCs had to actually steal his boyfriend's semen and give it to his sister so she could be the surrogate. No way is that an accident. Then he wanted to surprise him with the sonogram, apparently because nothing says 'I love you' like a surprise baby, but a Big Misunderstanding got in the way. It was a trainwreck.

The only time a secret baby has ever worked for me was in a non-romance series. The reason why the mother kept the baby a secret was because an entire criminal organization wanted to destroy the soul of the main character, and she knew that if he knew about his son he'd never be able to walk away. And he needed to walk away in order to survive. She did tell the main character's grandfather, so it wasn't like the boy was cut of from his paternal family. Eventually the main character found out though, leading to him taking huge risks to visit his son... anyway, the point is that there has to be a really good reason for that sort of plot to be acceptable for me. Otherwise it's just selfishness.

@Gloria - I bet there is mpreg fanfic out there with a secret baby in it. I also hope I never come across it.

The only decent excuse for an SB I can think of is if the hero had been for some reason declared legally dead but he really wasn't dead. Maybe a plane crash he survived (but he was lost). Or possibly if he was in a witness protection program.

Reply to post #8 (show post):
I know there is because I've seen it, in fanfiction at least!

And I bet it was a Supernatural fanfic. BRB, vom.

Gloria, please tell me I'll never come across that book. Sounds unforgivably terrible.

Reply to post #10 (show post):
The semen-stealing book was by Mary Calmes if I recall correctly, not really a surprise. I think the mpreg one was a AU something yaoi-ish actually, although I would not be surprised if Supernatural has some mpreg secret baby fics, it seems to have everything else.

Reply to post #11 (show post):
I was DONE at semen stealing!!