Just Maybe by Crystal Walton #BookReview

When a case of mistaken identity spirals into a more-than-complicated pretend relationship, an adventure seeker and a grammar fanatic just might’ve met each other’s match.

Three weeks. That’s all the time self-made billionaire Cooper Anderson has to respond to discovering he’s a single dad, sell his lake house, and catch a one-way ticket across the world. The quick-witted nanny responding to his ad couldn’t be more of a life saver … and maybe a nice distraction. Until the secrets she’s hiding get a little too close to exposing his own.

The one lead guaranteeing Quinn Thompson a promotion just has to land her back in her hometown to finagle an interview out of Mr. Elusive, of all people. But she can hack it, right? Even while mistaken for the nanny, she can keep things quick and professional. No running into her embarrassing southern family, no stirring up the wounds that’d sent her packing four years ago, and definitely no melting over a stockbroker’s unfair dimples and boyish charm.

Why, oh, why doesn’t anything ever go according to plan?

With both their deadlines closing in before they’re ready, Quinn and Cooper must decide whether the life they’re set on pursuing alone is worth more than the one they could be missing together.

 

My Thoughts:
In Just Maybe, the third book in her Home in You series, Ms. Walton has once again written a story that will draw you into the lives of her characters through their struggles, their hopes, and their growth and change throughout the book. Both Quinn and Cooper have some obstacles to overcome in their lives, especially relating to lies they’ve believed about themselves and who they are and the things they believe others think of them. Quinn struggles to find her value, thinking it rests on something it doesn’t, believing lies that tell her she isn’t enough, believing that others don’t see her as enough. Cooper has his own struggles with lies he’s accepted about who he is, about what he must do to honor his father, and more.

Quinn so clearly “sees” Cooper, sees who he is, sees what lies beneath the facade he puts up and she encourages him to see himself through the eyes of the people who love him, but he struggles to do so. Cooper, in turn, does the same for Quinn. He “sees” who she is and how the people who love her truly see her, but she cannot see it for herself. How often do we live our lives this way? So easily seeing others and the lies they’ve believed about themselves and even encouraging them to step beyond those lies to see the truth, but when it comes to ourselves, it is so much more difficult to see ourselves clearly, to recognize the lies we’ve believed about ourselves for what they are—falsehoods meant to keep us down, meant to keep us in bondage and away from the freedom of truth God offers us. I believe this aspect of Quinn’s and Cooper’s stories is so very real to so many of us. We sometimes desperately need someone to come along and shake us up, to show us how they see us and to help us get a glimpse of how God sees us so we can begin to offer to ourselves the grace we so easily bestow on others. It has been many times in my life that friends and loved ones were there to tell me what they saw in me when all I could see was failure or fear. They were there to help me stand against the lies I’d believed about myself.

Each story in this series has been a story of redemption, but each one has been so very unique with each set of characters relatable in their own way. It’s a series that is definitely worth the read with a message of hope and healing woven throughout. The characters are well developed and the romance is, without a doubt, swoonworthy. And as usual, Ms. Walton has given me just enough of the hint of the story coming in the next book that I am waiting anxiously for the next couple’s story that we’ll drawn into. I’ve no doubt the wait will be worth it!