Despite the freshness promised by a modern Chicano rewrite of Shakespeare’s tragedy, the happy ending is unsatisfying.
Star-crossed lovers struggle to reconcile romance and gentrification in a Hispanic community.
Julieta Campos, a trained chef, is managing her family’s small Mexican restaurant in the historic Chicano neighborhood of Barrio Logan in San Diego while supporting her recently widowed Mexican immigrant mom. When she enjoys a flirtation with a costumed man who serenades her with mariachi love songs during a Día de los Muertos celebration, little does she know that he is Ramón Montez, the scion of her family’s sworn enemy and an imminent gentrifier. When she realizes who he is, she runs off. Ramón is puzzled by her sudden flight from his beachside condo, but he focuses on the expansion of his firm's watered-down Mexican food empire. His plan to buy a block of Barrio Logan proceeds, but once he learns that it includes Julieta’s restaurant, things go south. Worse, he learns of the history of his father and her mother’s failed romance, which was followed by his dad's stealing her mom's fish taco recipe and building a franchise out of it. Gentrification, conflicts among family members with different values, and the history of state annexation of Chicano community land provide the backdrop to Julieta and Ramón’s pull-and-push relationship. Can they find their way to a happy ending despite all the bad blood? Since this is a romance, we know the answer. The author uses the Shakespearean premise to dramatize the characters’ conflicted loyalties and differing relationships to their Mexican American heritage. Ramón’s worries about his connection to his community have an autobiographical ring, as an author’s note suggests. A heavy-handedness in establishing Ramón’s stratospheric wealth makes him feel like a caricature, while Julieta’s strength as a character is undermined by her choice not just to get involved with a gentrifier she resents, but to join his franchise as an employee.
Despite the freshness promised by a modern Chicano rewrite of Shakespeare’s tragedy, the happy ending is unsatisfying.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-33622-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.
A heartbroken man lusts after his therapist while seeking revenge on a drug kingpin and his enforcer.
Mitch Haskell’s wife, Angela, died two years ago of an apparent suicide, but Mitch has always believed the scene was staged. Certainly, she would never have willingly left their young son, Andrew, behind. Consumed with a thirst for vengeance, Mitch—a former Marine and undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and currently a police detective—is struggling with alcohol dependency and uncontrolled rage. Andrew is living with his in-laws, who are making not-so-subtle suggestions that they might apply for permanent guardianship if Mitch can’t get it together. So his boss and best friend, John Bowie, mandates that he go into therapy, which puts him in the path of sexy Dr. Dylan Reede. Within a few days, Mitch makes a connection between two new murders and the death of his former partner; finds a big clue that points to the truth about Angela’s death; goes undercover as a homeless man; takes on a vicious drug cartel; and obnoxiously bullies Dylan with a charm offensive that leads them inevitably to bed. While Mitch seems to lean into the stereotype of the ex-soldier/cop with deeply buried trauma who believes that the ends justify the means—at least in law enforcement—Dylan offers the strength and sweetness to help him start breaking down his walls, allowing herself to be vulnerable in turn. Is passionate sex enough to ground a relationship and a family for the long term? For these characters, and the breakneck speed of this thriller, it’s as good a foundation as any.
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781538743027
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
