Blake captures all the complications of family, friendship, and romance with humor and heart.
A woman revisits old pain and experiences new love when she returns to her hometown for her stepsister’s wedding.
After a childhood filled with grief from the loss of first her mother and then her father by the time she was 10, and having felt unloved by Isabel, her stepmother, and Astrid, her stepsister, 30-year-old Delilah Green is finally making her own way in the world. Living boldly and unapologetically as a struggling photographer in New York City, Delilah keeps her hookups casual and her focus solely on her art and her own well-being. So, when Astrid asks Delilah to return to Bright Falls to photograph her wedding, Delilah can’t think of anything she’d rather do less. But with a sorely needed $15,000 payday attached to the event—and guilt over her father’s wishes for the family to stick together—Delilah reluctantly agrees. She expects to trudge through Isabel’s indifference and Astrid’s iciness until she can escape back to New York to prepare for a make-or-break showing of her work as part of a queer exhibition at the Whitney Museum. What she doesn’t expect is Astrid’s childhood best friend, Claire Sutherland. Claire has a busy life raising her 11-year-old daughter, Ruby, dealing with her flaky ex, Josh, and running her bookstore in town. But from the moment Claire sees Astrid’s formerly gloomy stepsister all grown up, there’s an instant attraction neither one can deny. Thrown together for many booze-soaked pre-wedding events—and an ill-advised plot to get Astrid to dump her horrible fiance before she walks down the aisle—the women reopen old wounds, heal past hurts, and realize just how much they have yet to learn about each other, their loved ones, and themselves.
Blake captures all the complications of family, friendship, and romance with humor and heart.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-33640-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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