Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin (Whiskey and Weddings #3)
Contemporary Romance
Released: August 28, 2018
St. Martins
Alexis Parker is healing after the loss of her fiance. She’s had a year to grieve, but she’s decided that it’s time to move forward and start following some of her own dreams. But before she makes any big moves, she’s spending some time with her family and friends. She misses her fiance, so she’s not looking for a man–so of course that’s exactly when she meets Jake.
Jake, TJ and Dean-who is Alex’s brother- have been in business with each other for a short time. They started making whiskey together, were successful, but needed something to fill in the downtimes and generate additional income–so they started doing weddings out of their distillery.
Jake and Alex become close after texting and emailing for over a year while Alex finished up her last year in the service overseas. When Alex gets home, she and Jake spend some time together and when Jake goes on the road to tour events and promote their whiskey and drum up business, Alex joins him. Over the course of two weeks, they realize their attraction goes beyond friendship and decide to do a friends with benefits thing, knowing that when they get home, it would be over.
Of course, it doesn’t really work that way when you’re in love.
I enjoyed this story and loved Jake and Alex together! Jake is one of those characters who is known as a player, until he meets the right woman and realizes that there is no one else out there for him. After their road trip, Jake and Alex go back to being just friends-or they try to. They are both miserable and it doesn’t take them long to realize why.
The plot device used to cement the relationship between Jake and Alex was disappointing because it’s used too often and while I didn’t really mind it used here, I disliked how it changed and affected the story’s outcome. Some things just didn’t make sense to me, or more didn’t sit well with me. And because these things happened near the end, I found myself not feeling the warm and fuzzies for this particular happily ever after. I can’t elaborate without giving it all away.
While I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything, this is book #3. Jake’s partners TJ and Dean have already had their HEAs and play prominent roles within this story. Since I did enjoy this book (for the most part), I’d like to read the first two books to round out the series. McLaughlin is a new to me author, and I like her voice and look forward to more.
Grade: B-
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