TITLE: Cross My Heart
AUTHOR: Avery Maxwell
SERIES: The Westbrooks: Broken Hearts
SERIES ORDER: 1
AVAILABLE IN KU: Yes
PUBLISHED: 06/16/2020
GENRE: Small Town Romance
RATING: 5/5
BLURB:
A single dad and a damaged soul…
Three kids. One ex-wife. And a seven-figure business to run. My world is absolute chaos. I don’t have time to breathe, let alone grieve the loss of my father. Not when nanny number three quits and everyone is demanding something from me.
When Lanie walks into my life—and the guest room across the hall—she’s the breath of fresh air the kids and I need. Smart, sassy, and beautiful, she refuses to be intimidated by my scowls. For the first time, I feel like someone finally has my back.
But I see the shadows in her eyes. The more I learn about Lanie’s dark past, the more I want to protect her. She’s the missing piece to my fractured family, and I need to convince her to stay. To make her choose us. Choose me. And I’ll do that one grand gesture at a time.
Dexter Cross will never understand my kind of damaged…
I’ve learned to be the kind of cautious that never lets a man close enough to hurt me again. It doesn’t matter that Dex makes me feel like I’m someone special, someone who deserves to be protected. It doesn’t matter that his kids have burrowed their way into my heart.
Some souls are just too damaged to love. I need to leave soon before someone gets hurt.
Cross My Heart is a steamy, page-turning, emotional rollercoaster standalone in the Westbrooks: Broken Hearts series.
“We all have scars, Lanes. Some are just better at hiding them.”
MY REVIEW:
My first introduction to Avery Maxwell was with her book, One Little Lie (The Westbrooks: Family Ties, #2). I fell in love with not only Hattie and Rylan but also the whole Westbrook family and knew I needed to read more. So, I went back to the beginning with Cross My Heart. The very first book in the Westbrook series and the first book that Avery ever published! Dexter Cross is in desperate search for a nanny for his three kids so that he can focus on his business and in walks Lanie Heart.
Lanie Heart is trying to move on from a horrific ordeal that she went through and has been staying with her best friend, Julia and Julia’s son, Charlie. Thinking that a change of scenery might do her good, she packs up and moves from Vermont to North Carolina where she takes a job as a nanny for a single father.
Dex and Lanie’s “meet cute” is rather funny and adorable. I loved Lanie’s bond with Tate and how she got him to open up. The group text messages were absolutely hysterical and had me cracking up while reading! They also got me really invested in the other characters; particularly Julia and Trevor, and Preston. I had it figured out where Avery was going with Julia and Trevor and the ending has me anxious to read their story next. Preston, I don’t remember him being so snarky in One Little Lie so I’m interested in reading what happened to him, and also find out who manages to capture his heart.
If you have not read this before and you like reading family sagas and are into the single dad/nanny trope, I’d definitely would recommend you check out Cross My Heart. I will suggest you bring tissues with you when start to read because Avery touches on some heavy topics. Cross My Heart, as well as all the other books in the Broken Hearts and Family Ties series are currently on Kindle Unlimited too if you want to try her out before you buy the book. Each book in the Westbrook series is a standalone but they are interconnected.