Review: Maybe This Time by Jennifer Cruise

Maybe This Time
by Jennifer Cruise

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: August 31, 2010
Price: $13.49 ($11.99 for Kindle)

What I Liked:
I have been a Jennifer Cruise fan since I first read Bet Me years and years ago. Her voice is witty and charming, and she always manages to write with a twist I don't see coming.

This book did not disappoint. In fact, I can safely say if you enjoyed Bet Me, you will love this book. There's a little bit of Minerva in Andromeda. (First of all, gotta give kudos to a woman who names her heroines like that, eh?) And there's a little bit of Cal in North Archer. (Love that name, too.) I am in love with North Archer, but I can also see why Andie left him the first time. I think that's the best kind of writing, when you're treating a subject like this. There's always got to be something that completely keeps them apart that feels real. That was well done.

I definitely enjoyed the plot and the characters, but what you read Jenny Cruise for is her voice. She's got a voice unlike any other. When she writes a line like "We've got a nympho ghost, and it looks like she hijacked your body and made the rounds", I just stop and marvel. She manages to say exactly what I'm thinking, but put it in words that I never would have found. This was a laugh-out-loud book, but it also had a poignancy that was heart-tugging at times and heart-breaking at others.

All in all, I thought this was a beautifully-written, engaging book. One that I will definitely be reading again.

Book Blurb:
Andie Miller is ready to move on in life. She wants to marry her fiancé and leave behind everything in her past, especially her ex-husband, North Archer. But when Andie tries to gain closure with him, he asks one final favor of her before they go their separate ways forever. A very distant cousin of his has died and left North as the guardian of two orphans who have driven out three nannies already, and things are getting worse. He needs a very special person to take care of the situation and he knows Andie can handle anything.

When Andie meets the two children she quickly realizes things are much worse than she feared. The place is a mess, the children, Carter and Alice, aren’t your average delinquents, and the creepy old house where they live is being run by the worst housekeeper since Mrs. Danvers. What’s worse, Andie’s fiancé thinks this is all a plan by North to get Andie back, and he may be right. Andie’s dreams have been haunted by North since she arrived at the old house. And that’s not the only haunting.

What follows is a hilarious adventure in exorcism, including a self-doubting parapsychologist, an annoyed medium, her Tarot-card reading mother, an avenging ex-mother-inlaw, and, of course, her jealous fiancé. And just when she thinks things couldn’t get more complicated, North shows up on the doorstep making her wonder if maybe this time things could be different between them.

If Andie can just get rid of all the guests and ghosts, she’s pretty sure she can save the kids, and herself, from the past. But fate might just have another thing in mind…