A treat for fake-dating fans and happily-ever-after lovers alike.
A bisexual romance author burned by love and an anxious actress fake-date in hope of keeping their meddling friends at bay.
Iris Kelly is happily single, though her friends and family in Portland, Oregon, would have her believe otherwise. While she’d be perfectly fine entertaining one-night-stands at Lush, her favorite queer bar, those closest to her can’t seem to stop intervening in her love life. Iris is the middle child of an Irish Catholic family, squished between picture-perfect married siblings and a mother who constantly sets her up with both men and women. After her latest relationship ended with her girlfriend’s wife showing up, Iris is no longer in a happily-ever-after mood…to the detriment of her second romance novel, which has a deadline coming up. Stevie Scott is in a similar predicament; her best friend/ex-girlfriend Adri is now dating her other best friend, and they’re all working together on the same gender-bent production of Much Ado About Nothing at a local theater. Stevie, who battles anxiety, fears she will never get back in the dating game—not that her friends ever let her forget it. Feigning confidence, Stevie tries her hand at Lush and meets free-wheeling Iris, though the date doesn’t quite end in fireworks. But when Iris unknowingly shows up to audition for Stevie’s play, they realize they can teach each other a few things about romance and sex while appeasing their nosy friends for a couple of months. As they coach each other through the ins and outs of casual dating and wooing, Iris and Stevie begin to find it difficult to keep their ruse strictly educational. The third and final installment of Blake’s Bright Falls series features an eclectic and diverse, albeit overbearing, cast of friends. Iris and Stevie’s attraction to each other is palpable, and Blake masterfully weaves a tale of growth where friendship, confidence, and passion ensue.
A treat for fake-dating fans and happily-ever-after lovers alike.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9780593550571
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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
A smart, steamy romance.
Tomforde’s sports romance pairs boardroom power plays with dugout drama.
As the youngest and only female owner of a Major League Baseball team, Reese Remington is used to pressure. Even though Reese is the granddaughter of the Windy City Warriors’ former owner, the men around her still question her position; she’ll “most likely have to work twice as hard and make [the] club’s success twice as noticeable to have any hope of being viewed as the right person to operate this team.” It doesn’t help that the franchise is bleeding money, the result of her grandfather’s hands-off approach in the years before his retirement. Reese must use her razor-sharp intelligence and fierce business sense to not only prove herself in a role in which the public is eager to see her fail, but also to make unpopular financial decisions to get the team out of the red. Enter Emmett Montgomery, a former All-Star turned field manager whose priorities lie firmly with people rather than profit. A man devoted to his team and his adopted child, Emmett has long since closed the door on romance, despite gentle nudging from his loved ones. His empathetic team-first mentality puts him immediately at odds with Reese’s pragmatic agenda, and with his contract up at the end of the year, Emmett worries he’ll be on the chopping block if he speaks out too much. Told from the perspectives of the leads, the novel gives equal page time to Reese and Emmett. Their concerns––the scrutiny Reese must endure as a woman in a male-dominated industry, and Emmett’s worries over his contract renewal––are tangible and add a sense of urgency to their every decision. While the novel includes some unavoidable exposition dumps to orient readers, it more than compensates by establishing clear stakes and a sense of momentum from the outset. The narrative successfully introduces credible barriers to the romance, which largely follows recognizable genre beats. The baseball setting is also used effectively, with the season-long arc mirroring the couple’s romantic and professional journeys.
A smart, steamy romance.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781649379795
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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