A young woman must face the consequences of her actions in Maybe Baby – and, as you may have guessed from the title, this particular consequence is of the diaper-wearing variety.

Delaney Poole has fallen in love with the small town of Harp Cove, Maine. She’s hoping that the powers that be accede to her request to be assigned there for three years, in exchange for the educational loans she got for medical school. Before she heads back home, however, Delaney agrees to get together with Jack, a man she’s noticed since she arrived in town, and their meeting leads to a night of lovemaking. Which, nine months later, leads to Emily, a bouncing baby girl. The following year, Delaney is back in Harp Cove working as a doctor. Although she did try to find Jack’s phone number when she found out she was pregnant, she never did find him to let him know about the baby, since she only knew that his last name began with “Shep”.

Needless to say, it is a shock to them both when Jack comes in to Delaney’s office, needing medical attention after his latest girlfriend has hit him on the head with a Wonder Woman bust. Delaney, now posing as a married woman, is in for another shock when Jack, whom the town gossips have pegged as a ladies’ man, announces that he is her landlord. Delaney’s solution to invent a husband, Jim or Joe, depending on whether she remembers his name correctly, who’s due to arrive in Harp Cove at a later time. Jack, meanwhile, who thinks there’s something odd about the whole husband business, has a decision of his own to make that may take him away from Delaney, whom he can’t stop thinking about, even though she’s technically unavailable.

Although each shenanigan that Delaney goes through to keep up the husband charade is entertaining on its own, I didn’t have much sympathy for her behavior. Even if I agreed with her decision to invent a husband, she keeps slipping and making mistakes that nearly give her away for most of the book. The larger picture, however, is that Delaney comes up with this solution knowing that she’ll be in Harp Cove for three years, where she and Emily will be running into Jack all the time. Sure, she’s desperate and has to come up with something in short notice, but Jack is such a nice man and a real hero, that her deception seemed more than a little cruel. His forgiveness of her comes very quickly – this is definitely one instance where I wanted the heroine to grovel a little before she got her Happily Ever After.

Ms. Fox’s writing style made for very fast reading and I found myself laughing out loud at times. My main problem was with the more serious side of Maybe Baby, but if a future book by this author strikes a more even balance between the serious and humourous aspects of her story, I’ll certainly look forward to giving it a try.