Come What Maybe by Kerri Carpenter (TLC Book Tour)

 

Do you like unexpected surprises or do you like everything planned.  I definitely like everything planned.

Lauren Wallace feels the same way.  She works in social media advertising and likes her life being planned out.  Unfortunately, her family has no idea what she does and does not respect her busy life schedule. She returns home to her small hometown of Seaside Cove, Maine to help out her sister who is having a crisis.  While she enjoys seeing her grandma and her sisters, Grams is a bit cranky.  Lauren needs some time away from her and goes to the local bar where she finds an old high school friend, Ethan McAllister, is now the bar owner.  Sparks fly and Lauren’s life takes a different turn than planned.   How will Lauren move forward in the future?  Does her future include Ethan?  Ethan who has a very different outlook on life than her?

I enjoyed this book.  I loved the characters and the family drama.  I like how Lauren had to really step outside of her comfort zone and look at what she wanted in life moving forward.  She also had to face demons from her own childhood.  Her parents married young, her father abandoned the family, and then her mother passed away from cancer.  Her Grandma raised her and her sisters.  Lauren is desperate not to repeat this scenario and marry someone who will not be there fore her and her family.  But this makes it so she isn’t willing to take risks on love.  I also how cranky her Grandma was how and her and her Grandma worked through their differences and came to a better understanding of each other by the end of the novel.  I love that the community of Seaside Cove was a character too and their gossip drove some of the action.  Lauren and Ethan had a great love story, although Lauren seemed to be the problem in their love story due to miscommunication.

This is both a second chance romance and friends to lovers trope.  The romance was more closed door and low on the steam scale.  I enjoyed it – it was a good story.  With my Grandma passing away recently, it was nice to have a Grandma and Granddaughter relationship in this book as well.  I loved the banter between Ethan and Lauren and found myself chuckling often as I read.

Seaside Cove is a new series of books with this as the first book in the series.  This was the first book I’ve read by Kerri Carpenter and it won’t be my last.  I thought the writing was very engaging.

Review Copy from Entangled Publishing as part of the TLC Book Tour.   Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book.  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

About Come What Maybe

Mass Market Paperback: 352 Pages

Publisher: Entangled: Amara (January 24, 2023)

Social media strategist Lauren Wallac
e plans everything. But when she returns to the charming–if not too small for comfort–town of Seaside Cove, it’s only about a second before her tough-love Grams is already on her case. So when Grams tells her not to go to that bar, Lauren decides it’s time for a temporary rebellion. Which is exactly when the trouble starts.

Grams was right. The bar was not a good plan. Because suddenly super-cute bar owner Ethan McAllister has gone from being Lauren’s (kind of) high school nemesis to a very unexpected one-night stand. And worse, Lauren’s attempts to resume her ultra-responsible life keep getting thwarted by more unwelcome spontaneity. And a pregnancy.

Now there’s a baby on the way, Lauren’s the talk of the entire town, and all her planning has gone right out the window. All that’s missing is childbirth to make her pain complete. But it’ll be nothing compared to Grams’s reaction when she finds out that Lauren broke the biggest rule of all…falling for the wrong guy.