An offbeat romance that will leave readers guessing until the very end.
A new series installment about a love affair that follows the terms of a literal contract.
Years ago, football player Shane Smith broke an engagement to be with Carice Charles, mistakenly thinking that she was the one for him. Now, years later, he thinks that he’s learned the error of his ways. Bryn Charles, he now believes, is everything he wants and needs in a partner, but Carice is still in his life as the mother of his child. However, Bryn has a plan, thinking that if Carice can come up with an arrangement to keep Shane in line, then so can she. So Bryn presents Shane with a contract detailing what needs to happen for them to stay together—and if he follows it, line by line, there are some particularly juicy guarantees that he can look forward to at the end of its term. But not everything goes according to Bryn’s plan; Carice, and the vagaries of life itself, find ways to make things go sideways. This third and final installment of Williams’ Sidelined series, following The Draft (2017) and The Penalty (2018), is part romance and part inspirational women’s fiction. The book takes off like a shot with Shane narrating the story from prison, and it doesn’t stop or give the reader any breaks; instead, it moves from one hit to another at a brisk pace. Although it can be read as a stand-alone work, readers would do well to tackle the previous installments first. Those who are new to the series will find the characters to be instantly likable, but they may find it difficult to figure out the various relationships without a more thorough grounding in the story. This novel may not provide the ending that some readers may hope for, but the journey to get there is still uplifting and exhilarating.
An offbeat romance that will leave readers guessing until the very end.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9985146-4-2
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Bianca Williams Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fun, positively frothy friends-to-lovers romance.
While on her sister’s wedding cruise, a woman enlists her childhood best friend for help as she attempts to woo her longtime crush.
JoJo Burton is bad at love. After she leaves her terrible fiancé, Pearce Richmond, at the altar, she’s convinced she might never settle down. But during her sister’s wedding, which is being held on an eight-day cruise to the Bahamas and Cozumel, she and her family concoct a plan that will help her seduce her recently divorced childhood crush, Finn Turner. The two of them once shared a blindfolded kiss that might have ruined JoJo for all other men, and she’s never forgotten it. But then JoJo’s best friend, Cooper Watts, shows up. Cooper and JoJo were inseparable as children but didn’t talk for years after she got engaged to Pearce. She doesn’t know why he suddenly disappeared on her, but it doesn’t matter—he’s here now, and she needs him to help her get Finn to reenact that long-ago kiss. But after she and Cooper share a cabin, get thrown together for every wedding week activity, and even engage in the classic friendly flirting meant to make another man jealous, JoJo starts to realize that Finn might not be the man she’s been waiting for, after all. Center keeps things light, focusing on humor even when the subject matter veers into family drama. JoJo and Cooper find themselves caught up in the sort of tropes that are catnip for romance fans—he takes care of her when she has a sunburn, for instance, and they participate in a slow-dance contest. As Center reveals in an author’s note at the beginning, “Spoiler: This book will end well.” The destination may not be a surprise, but the journey is a delight.
A fun, positively frothy friends-to-lovers romance.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9781250408051
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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