Engaging Deception

Olive Kentworth has spent her life hiding her interest in architecture, even though she pores over architectural books and sketches buildings. When she accepts a job on a home expansion, it's only because her cousin Amos agrees to pose as the builder. To further hide her involvement, Olive takes a position as a nanny--not knowing that she'll be working for her idol, Joplin's leading architect, widower Maxfield Scott.

Maxfield is intrigued by his new nanny--she makes his home and his life bearable again. His work, on the other hand, is a disaster. An untrained builder is remodeling a completed project of his. What's worse, Maxfield's current client wants changes to his plans because of that builder's work.

As the architectural one-upmanship heats up, Olive's involvement becomes harder to hide. Will the relationship between her and Maxfield survive, or will they both miss out on building something for their future?

My Review: 9/10

This was a delightfully fun read with all of the usual antics of the Kentworth cousins – Amos in particular stole the show. I would have loved it for the story itself. But additionally, I really connected with the faith messages in the story; I have a lot of “amens” written after the highlights portions, haha. The message about things not happening willy-nilly and God being the designer of your life was particularly timely for me personally and hit it’s mark head on.

There are themes of loss, healing and moving forward. And since it is the love story of a widower, I really appreciated that this book didn’t do a disservice to marriage (like so many others do) by presenting the first marriage as seriously lacking (ie being an arranged one, there being infidelity or major disconnects, or it just being a loveless marriage, etc). Maxfield really loved his first wife and I loved the way Willow respected and made space for it. So well done.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sweet read, highly recommend! And if you haven’t read the others in the series, go back and start with those!