cover image MAYBE BABY

MAYBE BABY

Elaine Fox, . . Avon, $5.99 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-380-81783-2

One seemingly innocent lie swiftly snowballs to preposterous proportions in this farcical contemporary romance. Harp Cove, Maine, is "The Way Life Should Be"—quaint, friendly and filled with good-humored gossips. While visiting the picturesque little town, Dr. Delaney Poole has a one-night stand with renowned ladies' man Jack Shepard and is stunned to learn soon after that she is pregnant. A year later, Delaney returns to Harp Cove with her infant daughter to assume the position of town doctor, only to find that Jack is her landlord. For some unknown reason, Delaney had intended to pass herself off as a divorcée, but when she sees Jack and the sultry teenybopper he's with, she invents a husband who lives in another region. To convince Jack that she does have a husband named Jim—or is it Joe?—Delaney has to slice a couple of months off of Emily's age, redo her tax form and stuff her closet with men's clothes. Delaney is a terrible liar, however, and Jack sees through her charade. The only thing that perplexes him, and the reader, is why Delaney feels the need to lie in the first place. Fox (Compulsion), a veteran author of historical romances, has made the mistake of letting silly shenanigans and screwball behavior overshadow the romance here, and this debut contemporary is unlikely to earn her a broader readership. (Aug.)