A Not So Immaculate Conception


Romance - Comedy
243 Pages
Reviewed on 07/05/2019
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Crystal Estell is a romance author who spends her days caring for the sick and her evenings chasing happy ever afters. Somewhere in between she finds time for her husband, kids, dogs, chickens, and cockatiel, Puck, who flew into her life uninvited. Fueled on coffee and wine, she often does crazy things like paint the walls of her home twice, build her own furniture, repair broken appliances, install her own floors—and then shares how she did it. Her goal is to amass an army of fans who love romance as much as she does so she can rule the world—although she’d happily settle for the rank of full-time author.

To learn more about her and why she does what she does, go to https://estellsplace.com

    Book Review

Reviewed by K.J. Simmill for Readers' Favorite

Lacey had a ten-year plan. She was on track, prioritizing work, focusing on blueprints, and most importantly, pushing aside her personal life to ensure she got the contract of a lifetime. All was on track until words from an elderly woman set her on edge. Lacey knew she couldn't be pregnant. She hadn't had sex for eleven months, or so she thought, and yet the tests confirmed it. The doctor advised that, while rare, sex-related amnesia was not unheard of. She remembered flashes of the steamy dream, but the face of her lover evaded her. With nothing else to do, she begins her hunt for the father, drawing Zak, a work friend, closer into her life as her condition threatens to see the contract slip through her fingers. Lacey has a plan for everything, but a baby and love are not in the cards. Can she find the guy who gave her a night of mind-blowing passion, and can she separate the truth between the life she is pretending to have with Zak and the feelings she really harbors?

A Not So Immaculate Conception by Crystal Estell is a brilliant romantic comedy; it had a Bridget Jones's Baby kind of vibe to it, and it would certainly make a movie people would fall over themselves to see. I loved Lacey's character. Her cute, clumsy yet driven, serious, and stubborn personality makes her instantly likable, and the building tension between her and Zak is brilliant. There were moments that sent my stomach aflutter. The complicated relationships, along with the web of secrets and lies add to the tension and humor. Lacey had a plan for everything but her failure to plan sent her world spinning, and yet at every turn sweet Zak is there, waiting, giving her space, or holding her close. The humor in this book left me chuckling, and the romance was so beautifully scripted. There were times you wanted to shake Lacey until she saw everything her own stubbornness was forcing her to miss. Romance, suspense, tension, and humor make this a wonderful and fun read.

Jack Magnus

A Not So Immaculate Conception is a romantic comedy novel written by Crystal Estell. Lacey Winters was a woman in control of her destiny. She had every milestone charted and was, even now, anticipating landing the contract for The Sanctity of Marriage Coalition’s downtown skyscraper. Margot Wallace, the Coalition’s head, was on hand to congratulate her on having won the contract, and she expressed her admiration while mentioning as an aside that she had actually hoped for a married person to have won the contract, considering, of course, the Coalition and its purpose. She did assure Lacey that her single status wasn’t sufficient to disqualify her. After all, it wasn’t as though she were an unmarried mother or anything, Margot added.

Those words made Lacey’s blood run cold. Just earlier that day, a homeless woman had told Lacey that she was pregnant, and she did seem to have the oddest cravings. But how could that be? She hadn’t been intimate with anyone since she broke up with the detestable Finn. When she finally did have the time to use the home pregnancy test she had picked up on her way to work, however, it flashed two bright lines of pink. She was, indeed, pregnant. But how? And how was she to keep that contract?

Crystal Estell’s romantic comedy novel, A Not So Immaculate Conception, is a fast-paced and funny story about a strictly business young woman whose elaborately planned-out life is thrown into disarray by an unexplainable pregnancy. Following as she tries to figure out who the phantom father is, while keeping up the pretense that she is indeed married, makes this story work quite well. Estell’s plot is ingenious and filled with the unexpected, and her characters soon felt familiar and authentic. A Not So Immaculate Conception is highly recommended.

Rabia Tanveer

Lacey Winters is a strong independent woman, one who knows what she wants in her life and she plans it out thoroughly. She has a ten-year plan; however, what she was not expecting was to get pregnant unexpectedly. She was just having fun one night and the next thing she knows, she is pregnant. With the events of that night being particularly hazy, she has no idea who it was but she knows that the man was hot. However, things go downhill the moment her boss finds out and, in an act of desperation, she says that her co-worker Zak Cooper is her husband. Now poor Zak has to pretend to be her husband until her private investigator can find out who the father actually is. But what both of them were not expecting was the fact that they might fall for each other, so what will they do?

I wish I could give more than 5 stars to A Not So Immaculate Conception by Crystal Estell because this is a gem of a novel. From its humorous narrative to its pretty awesome characters, this novel was filled with amusing anecdotes that had me smiling until the very end. Lacey Winters is my spirit animal; she is funny, feisty, incredibly talented and a quick thinker. Zak Cooper, on the other hand, is the sweetest man ever. He stepped up, reluctantly or not, and helped her out. The chemistry between was phenomenal, they fought it, they avoided it, and then they simply learned to live with each other and then they grew to love each other. Was the story a little clichéd? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. The character development is nicely done, the pace is fast, the narrative is smooth and the dialogues are some of the wittiest I have ever read.