Review: Maybe This Time

Maybe This Time by Nicole McLaughlin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jen MacKenzie is your typical girl from the wrong side of the tracks, living in a bad apartment, no full-time job, drowning in debt, tattoos, no college education. She was poor but happy teaching theatre in a local community college until the funding ran out, now she's juggling two part-time jobs and struggling to make ends meet.

TJ Laughlin was the Andrew McCarthy to Jen's Molly Ringwold in this variant in Pretty in Pink (or Cinderella, if you are old school). The son of wealthy parents he was one of the popular kids at school, handsome, glossy, well-dressed and gleaming smile.

Years later TJ is a joint owner of the The Stag, a boutique distillery that has become Kansas City’s go-to wedding venue. Jen has been part-time tending bar on a Saturday night and acting receptionist while the regular woman is on maternity leave, she's not thrilled to be working for someone who looks like he smells something bad every time she walks into a room but a job's a job, right?

TJ has lusted after Jen from afar ever since school, he even watched every single one of her Am-Dram productions. But his snobby friends and family deterred him from ever approaching her. Now, years later, working with the woman of his dreams is sweet torture.

I liked this but I didn't love it. My ARC had lots of grammatical errors (which I am sure were corrected before it was published). It was so blindingly obvious from the get-go that TJ liked Jen that her obliviousness appeared deliberately obtuse. Yet she continued to delude herself that TJ hated her, TJ looked down on her yadda yadda. Denial ,denial, denial. TJ was just as bad, he didn't get the courage to speak up until another man looked likely to sweep in and steal Jen.

Overall, it felt like Nicole McLaughlin was trying too hard to be even-handed, Jen had family issues, TJ had family issues, Jen had a secret, TJ had a secret etc etc.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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