Maeve’s Baby
by Fiona McArthur
Release Date: August 5, 2020
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Book #2 in the Outback Brides Return to Wirralong series
Number of pages: 159
Kindle
Source: ARC from publisher
Contemporary Romance M/F
Rating: PG-13
Read 8/9/20 to 8/10/20
Midwife Maeve McGill can deliver a baby with no complications, but finding love isn’t that easy. After falling for and being dumped by a doctor who only wanted her as a glorified nanny for his kids, she left her job for a position at a clinic in Wirralong. Maeve is determined to embrace her new life with the help of her friend, Lacey. Men are absolutely off the menu.
Doctor Jace Bronson is everything Maeve’s last boyfriend wasn’t. He’s big—a big chest to lean on with a big heart and a crazy big smile she can’t resist. But Jace is a father and his job is temporary, so he and Maeve vow to keep their relationship strictly professional. Maeve doesn’t want to risk the heartbreak, and Jace wants to protect his daughter from falling under Maeve’s warm and caring spell—the way he has.
They had good intentions, but love, chemistry and the magic of Wirralong have a way of bringing two wounded souls together.
Foreplay. That’s what this book felt like to me. Foreplay. I lot of build up but, unfortunately, not as much of a payout I was hoping for.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that slow build with simmering chemistry. It’s fun and can be a bit intense. The anticipation is half the fun. In this story, it actually worked quite well for the situation Maeve and Jace were in; their pasts and foreseeable futures. Once they give in to those feelings a bit, they start a sweet courtship that is super sexy while also being somehow quite innocent. The problem? The story went from anticipation and sweetness to HEA the end in the blink of an eye. While Jace and Maeve get their closure, it seemed so rushed considering how slow the build up had been. Quite frankly, I wanted more.
It’s always hard for me to review a story when there is a lot I like about the book and it brings joy. If it had just been the too of an quick ending, I would be rating this one much higher. But there are some glaring inconsistencies with the tale and that is my pet peeve. Timelines and details have got to be paid attention to by the author. There are times Maeve seems to know some information about Jace, then later she seems to be learning the same information for the first time. Times where the POV is Jace’s and abruptly switches to Maeve. The chapters are labeled with the characters, so it’s not me getting confused. And it’s not something I can overlook.
The stories in this series so far are quick and sweet reads. I just wish the writing and/or editing in this one was a bit more tight.
3 stars
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
All In Good Time 