No. There Is No Maybe About This, Baby.

Maybe Baby by Elaine Fox
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

First chapter in, I thought I was somewhere I'd like. Maybe in the vein of some of my favorite paperback romances a'la Rachel Gibson or Lani Diane Rich. Not as screwball as a Crusie, but a funny enough, small town affair with some chest squeezing moments of shipping a worthy couple.

Delaney was having a Mary Tyler Moment of oohing and aahing over this tiny Maine town where she was about to become their fancy city Doc from out of town. She's twirling and about to go into the neighborhood bar to meet up with the super hot guy she met in town who has a boat who she assumes is visiting just like her. He's charming, and his eyes crinkle just so and then they're dancing and before you know it they're have some sandy sex out on the beach. At this point I should have been alerted that maybe this one wasn't going to be my cup of tea. It was a little fluffy and a little too...introspectively sweet to be a one night stand.

Still, though. A one night stand. You know what happens next.


They part and she's knocked up and some of her most engaging moments were while she was trying to figure her life out alongside her gay best friend. I loved Michael, because he said all the things to her I wanted to shout when she started to fall down the But I'm A Mother Now well that led her to make a bunch of crappy, selfish decisions. She ends up in that fertile Maine town and who also lives there?

Her baby daddy that she only sort of kinda tried to get in touch with. Because he had sex with her after only knowing her a couple of hours and what kind of dad would he make? I mean...he has a boat. And he once had sex with a twenty year-old. So, no. She refuses to contact him. And no, she's not being selfish or insecure. She doesn't want her daughter to have a shitty step-mom.

Completely valid decision-making.

Delaney was so ridiculous at this point  I couldn't believe the way she explained herself to herself. Michael tried pointing her bias out to her over the phone and there was this Ha Ha funny parallel with the soap opera everyone in town watched, but because of Delaney's outlandish lies, crazy choices AND THEN to top it off with her unbelievable snobby attitude towards his job, life, and the harmless choices he's made befitting of a single man with a job he loves, there was simply no way for me to sympathize with her.

She genuinely LOSES it over the old men gossiping in the diner. Then just dumps all that insecurity onto Jack WHO SHE WON'T EVEN TELL HAS A DAUGHTER. THAT BABY HE KEEPS PLAYING WITH. It was aggravating and it completely stole away from any possibility of them having chemistry together, or simply giving a crap if they ended up together. I wanted to tell him it wasn't worth the hassle.

She's cray, dude.

 Disengage and get the hell out of there.