Go ahead… groan at the title of this one. I did. Fortunately, there are no babies in sight, but when that’s a major selling point, a book’s in trouble. It’s a good thing that Not Precisely Pregnant, which starts out annoying, improves as the story unfolds, but it’s too little, too late to help much.

Paige Montgomery, a features reporter for WMAC news (where nice news matters), finds herself in trouble while working on a piece for her About Town show. She has an attack of appendicitis while pretending to be pregnant and a taxi driver comes to her rescue, rushing her to the hospital because he thinks she’s in labor. Paige recognizes her rescuer as surly newspaper columnist Riley Calhoon.. Riley rushes off before Paige can thank him and tell him what happened. Paige decides that Riley is her hero and that the community needs to know how heroic he actually is. She sets about convincing him to be profiled in one of her features, which leads to the two getting to know each other much better.

Though Riley calls Paige Pollyana because she’s determined to see the good in people and works for the “nice news” station, she’s very professional, likable, and not as Pollyannaish as Riley thinks. She knows what she wants from her work and achieves it. Paige is someone readers might enjoy having as a friend. But her insistence on Riley being a hero pushed the boundaries of believability.

Riley is one of those men who show the world a tough exterior; he has trouble letting people see any nicety in his character. But he’s a marshmallow at heart, even though he refuses to let himself believe it. As Paige tries to convince him to be interviewed, he gets annoyed that she keeps calling him a hero and turning up in places he happens to be. Finally he convinces himself that little accidents that happen while Paige is around are her fault. When she agrees to give up trying to convince Riley to be interviewed, he decides to “get her back” by following her around town and annoying her. How old is Riley, anyway? His determined grumpiness got old fast.

Six months before Riley rescued Paige, they’d been on a disastrous date, but their continued arguing clearly hides an attraction. Once Riley apologizes to Paige for something and they start to actually talk, he realizes he likes her and even respects her work. From that point on the story picks up. Paige and Riley are hot together, and I wished more of the book had focused on their getting to know each other after they quit squabbling. However, when Riley has a lapse near the end, he’s a little too quick to believe the worst.

With a little more focus on the good stuff, Not Precisely Pregnant would have been so much better. Still, the story zips by and was over before I knew it. Skim the skirmishes in the first half and you might enjoy this one.