A swoonworthy rom-com about finding true love—and finding your true self along the way.
Childhood neighbors Tae and Julia reconnect when he agrees to be her dating coach.
At 30, Julia Song has a thriving professional life. Four years after she founded Starlight Cosmetics in Santa Monica, California, the company is eyeing possible investors for global expansion. Julia’s romantic life is nonexistent, though, and she’s determined that her propensity for being bluntly honest, her inability to make small talk, and her reluctance to downplay her career ambitions have made her undatable. But while Julia might be fine with giving up on love, she believes her family won’t be fully impressed with her life choices until she has a “fat diamond engagement ring.” At her grandmother’s 80th birthday party, these fears are confirmed when Halmoni tells Julia that the doctor “found something” and it is her dying wish for Julia to get married. Unable to say no to her beloved grandmother, Julia agrees to be set up on three dates by her family. But how can she make sure they go well? Enter Julia’s childhood neighbor, 25-year-old Taehyung Kim. The dutiful son has dropped everything to return home to his parents in Irvine after his father’s cancer diagnosis. When selfless Tae reconnects with Julia—on whom he’s been nursing a crush since childhood—he agrees to become her dating coach, helping her overcome the interpersonal pitfalls that have kept her from finding The One. As they grow closer, sparks soon fly, but navigating their disparate life circumstances—Julia the wealthy chief executive, Tae the unemployed son living with his parents—might nip their growing attraction in the bud. The novel’s main conceit—that Julia’s family cares more about marrying her off than they do about her wildly successful career—chafes against modern sensibilities, and this belittling behavior is not deeply interrogated. But author Lee navigates Tae’s questions about purpose, ambition, and carving his own path with nuance and heart.
A swoonworthy rom-com about finding true love—and finding your true self along the way.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781335402523
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Canary Street Press
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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