Smart, sexy, and sweet. Readers will be over the moon for this rom-com.
A woman who doesn’t believe in love and a man who's made finding love his life’s work discover that real romance is more complicated than either imagined.
Annie Kyriakos has just arrived in Seattle to surprise her best friend, Darcy. With Annie’s constant travel for her job at a human resources consulting firm and Darcy’s preoccupation with her new girlfriend, Elle, the two haven’t seen each other in more than a year. But Annie’s got other motives for her impromptu visit: She’s moving to London for a promotion and wants to tell Darcy in person. The bad news? Darcy is on vacation in Vancouver. The good news? Her brother, Brendon, has the key to her apartment. When Brendon Lowell, hopeless romantic and founder of dating app OTP, hears that Annie is in town, he hopes he might have another shot with his teenage crush. At dinner, the two hit it off immediately. But Annie is not looking to be swept off her feet, especially not by her best friend’s younger (though unexpectedly very handsome) brother. In fact, Annie thinks love is dead, and dating apps like Brendon’s are partly to blame. So, Brendon devises a plan: He’ll take cues from his favorite rom-com films to prove to Annie that romance is real and, with a little help from Darcy, Elle, and their friend Margot, convince her to leave her unfulfilling job and stay in Seattle. The rom-com re-creations give the plot some structure. Tropes including “there’s only one bed” and embarrassing moments like falling into a lake in formal clothes are used to great result—but the author doesn’t let the gimmick overtake strong character development, and the writing feels fresh, never derivative.
Smart, sexy, and sweet. Readers will be over the moon for this rom-com.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300084-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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
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