Title: Series: Colorado Ice, #.5
By: Jennifer Snow
ISBN: 1455596671 (ISBN13: 9781455596676)
Author’s Website: http://www.jennifersnowauthor.com
Review brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra
Synopsis: 
Neil Healy was happy to be promoted to Air Force Lieutenant, but he’s less than thrilled that the new job has brought him back to his hometown. The memories alone could kill a man, to say nothing of actually seeing the woman he never got over. Neil knew avoiding Becky Westmore would be impossible, but he didn’t expect the chemistry between them to be as strong as ever.
All Becky wants this holiday season is to get through the month of December with her sanity intact. Not helping? Her ex-boyfriend’s return to Glenwood Falls. Even after a decade apart, Neil still makes her feel in ways no other man has. But Christmas is a time for miracles, and maybe Becky’s will be a second chance at first love.
Review:
My oh my….what a great second chance romance. And with a man in uniform to boot….had me swooning. Maybe This Kiss begins with Neil returning to his home town as a result of a promotion after 12 long years. He left his lady love, Becky, when he enlisted with the Air Force. Actually, if truth be told, Becky could not handle the uncertainty of a military spouse when Neil begged her to go with him to Miami:
“The last time she’d seen Neil was the day he’d returned from basic training. Together and inseparable since the seventh grade, she’d hated every minute of him being away. But he’d reassured her that the ten weeks would pass quickly and then they would be starting a life together, moving in together once he returned. Twenty years old and so in love, she’d hoped he was right……She’d had a lot of time to think in the weeks he’d been away. She knew she couldn’t deal with a long distance relationship, with unreliable communication and silences for weeks on end. The danger and uncertainty of a military career, the tours to war-torn territory, had made her feel sick to her stomach, and the instability and the possibility of moving from base to base wasn’t a life she thought she could handle.”
Back to current day we find that Becky is a widow (she had married a police officer – killed during a search and rescue mission) and the mother to Taylor, an eight-year-old tom boy who is a genius on skates! Hockey playing is in the family blood, with two uncles in the NHL! That was a bonus for keeping my interest (I am Canadian after all and hockey is all around me), that’s for sure.
The reader is lead through the reuniting of these two people, their struggles to see if maybe this time a relationship can work (since neither of them has fully gotten over their first true loves). I like how Neil approaches and bonds with Taylor, not in a sneaky way, but one that shows he really does like the child for herself and her hockey talents.
Now if this does not embody the essence of sexy, I don’t know what does – thoughts that Becky was having after an intimate moment:
“He’d put on his jeans, but nothing else, and she was reminded of catching him in just a towel. What was it about a man’s chiseled bare chest, stomach, and arms that was sexier than total nakedness?”
The story made me laugh and tear up and kept me captivated throughout my afternoon reading session. I was also completely exhausted by the schedule that Becky kept for herself! I was amazed how she seemed to do it all, though at what cost? As a single mom, I can appreciate the “I can do it myself” attitude. It was also difficult and moving to see how her walls were “climbed” by Neil in an attempt to show her they could build a life together. Some definitely very poignant moments that had me emotional.
I found the character development quite sufficient, especially given that the read is a novella. I look forward to reading the next installment of the Colorado Ice series – Maybe This Time and reading the story of Abigail Jansen and Jackson Westmore.
*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*
