Reviewer: Rowena
Maybe Baby by Lani Diane Rich
Publisher: Warner Forever
Publication Date: June 1st 2005
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 285
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Dana Wiley's True Confessions (Or How Did I Get into This Mess?)
My mother's being held by kidnappers, and only Nick Maybe, the man I left at the altar six years ago, knows how to find the ransom-a big, smelly, flightless parrot.

Manhattan isn't exactly ideal for wildlife-unless you're talking about me and Nick. How can a man I haven't seen in six years make me so crazy-in all meanings of the word?

So the bird's worth a quarter million, and it turns out we're not the only ones who want it. Great. And Nick keeps looking at me with those eyes and kissing me with those lips...Oh, what the hell. There isn't a statute of limitations on love. Is there?

It would appear that Holly and I are on the same reading wave length because like her, I’m all about the human on human action right now. I don’t want to read anything too deep nor do I want read anything too dark at the moment. What I’m itching to read is some good chick lit or some lighter and fluffier romances that make me sigh with corny gooeyness.

I’m on the run more often than not these days and I still want to keep reading but I don’t want to take the time to actually dig down deep into a solid storyline so light and fluffy? Bring it on.

This book was one of the books I nabbed from Holly’s stash a few weekends ago and I read it within a couple of days and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. When I read the back of the book, I was unsure at how much I’d actually enjoy this book since it’s a book about an ugly, stinky bird and even though I have total faith in Holly’s pimp status, I was scared to read this one. I shouldn’t have been scared at all because this book was so cute and just right for me right now.

You see, this book is about a couple, Nick Maybe and Dana Wiley. Nick and Dana used to be engaged. They were almost married until Dana panicked and jumped ship, leaving a heartbroken sexy Nick at the altar.

Nick moves out of the house they share on Dana’s family winery vineyard place and moves over to New York. He stays in contact with Dana’s mom even though Dana doesn’t. Dana’s got issues with the institution of marriage since her mother left her father and her father never got over it. Her mother’s disappearing act changed her father for the worst in Dana’s opinion and she never really forgave her mother for leaving and dumping all of her father’s crap on her door.

So anyway, Dana’s winery is in trouble, some of her grapes got sick and she had to close the winery for a season and find some way to save the winery. One way was to take a loan out, but the bank wouldn’t give her the loan without a cosigner.

Enter Dana’s estranged mother.

Dana packs up and goes to visit her mother in hopes of gaining her permission to co sign for the loan she must take out to save her suffering vineyard. She doesn’t know that her mother still keeps in contact with her ex fiance nor does she know that he does odd jobs for her and her rich friends. So imagine her surprise when Nick walks into her mother’s house as if he’s there regularly, her surprise is made all the more outrageous when she’s been having these moments of clarity where she thinks that she made a mistake in leaving Nick. She realizes that she still loves him and seeing him again after all of that made her a little crazy.

The answer to all of their problems happens to be a bird that’s worth a whole butt load money. Babs can’t cosign for the loan, Nick doesn’t want Melanie Biggs to win this battle she’s got going with Dana and Dana just needs money period. All of these problems made for one seriously light, funny and oh so cute read.

It was nice to see these two find their way back to each other and the journey it took for Dana to finally realize the error of her ways and the error of her thinking was worth having to read through all of her insecurities. The bird bit was hilarious, I loved meeting Finn the bird thief and then the crazy kidnappers and just everything about this book screamed, funny and great!

I loved all the bits of Dana and Babs. It was nice to see them mend their relationship and I loved how protective Nick was of both of those women, even though one woman was the woman who tore his heart in two and the other is the woman who birthed the woman who ripped his heart to shreds.

I thought Nick was a fantastic hero. One who wasn’t uber alpha nor too beta to turn me off. He was the right amount of both and he was just so frickin’ hot that I want one of my very own. He was a good man with bad boy tendencies and man was he a delight to get to know through the pages of this book.

Dana was one crazy lady and I enjoyed reading about her and getting to know her through this story. She wasn’t the most perfect heroine, she was normal and I liked that about her. She had the same kind of worries that everyday women had and I thought she was one cool chick.

Overall this book was great, I definitely recommend this book if you’re in the mood for a cute funny read…

Grade: 4 out of 5