Stale, unexamined stereotypes coupled with lack of character growth make for a disappointing romance.
A biochemical engineer ends up working with the man her parents would like her to marry.
Liya Thakkar is happy both professionally and personally. She has a tight-knit group of friends and just accepted a big promotion at work. Unfortunately, her conservative father is still trying to arrange her perfect match—a good Hindu man from a respectable family—even though she never plans to get married. One night, Liya goes to her parents’ home for a quiet family dinner and is surprised to find her father has invited a surprise blind date, Jay Shah. Infuriated at her father’s meddling, Liya refuses to even meet Jay and sneaks out the back door. But running away from Jay is harder than it looks, as he’s been hired to bail her firm out of a daunting legal mess. As they work together to save the company, Liya discovers that the prickly, confrontational demeanor she uses as a shield doesn’t work with Jay. Meanwhile, Jay is surprised to find himself impressed with Liya's dedication and hard work. Liya is slow to trust Jay, but their professional relationship slowly evolves to friendship and then to romance. As a teenager, Liya was a victim of sexual assault at the hands of an older, respected member of the community. It makes her fight-or-flight survival strategy easier to understand, but she never moves past these simple coping mechanisms. The book fails to portray a modern world of dating. Early on, a white man expects her “to give it up” after an expensive dinner date, and she is openly shunned by her community for being a sexually active woman in her 20s. There is little nuance in Patel’s exploration of gender and dating, which fuels rather than interrogates stereotypes of South Asian culture.
Stale, unexamined stereotypes coupled with lack of character growth make for a disappointing romance.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-3333-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
A deep examination of grief, love, and the power of art.
Former lovers embark on a bucket-list road trip to honor their late mentor’s memory, reigniting their own connection in the process.
Dani Jenkins made a name for herself after pivoting from model to influencer, but creating the videos that made her an online it girl doesn’t hold her interest the way it used to. When Tanya Holden, her longtime mentor, dies, having kept her cancer a secret, it’s a shock for Dani—and it brings her face to face with the man who broke her heart years ago. Micah Wright is a talented artist who credits Tanya with steering him away from a criminal path; he’s nursing his own regrets for how things ended with Dani the first time around. A meeting with Tanya’s attorney reveals her dying wish for Dani and Micah: To complete a scavenger hunt that will take them through her past. Traveling all over the country is the last thing either Dani or Micah wants to be doing, but they’re willing to honor Tanya’s memory through a surprisingly illuminating road trip—and, despite the risk of aggravating old wounds, find themselves warming to the possibility of picking up where they once left off. Bishop’s latest expands on characters previously introduced in supporting roles in Only for the Week (2024); it was clear then that Dani and Micah had a complicated history. Unlike Janelle and Rome’s lust-to-love trajectory in that first installment, Dani and Micah have an undeniable slow burn, with Dani reluctant to lower the walls she’s built around her heart and Micah endearingly cautious in his attempts to win her back. While the lingering angst from their shared past would have been better served through more flashbacks to that period, and the road-trip conceit introduces a revolving door of characters who occasionally distract from the irresistible love story, the book’s most tender moments evince Bishop’s strengths as a writer.
A deep examination of grief, love, and the power of art.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781638932741
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Zando/Slowburn
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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