A mouthwatering romance.
Tam and Josh have been the perfect couple since high school, but not romantically—they’re best friends.
When Tam Doan arrives home from a failed business trip for the advertising job she despises, she doesn’t think her night can get any worse. That is, until she finds her boyfriend in bed with his ex and also discovers that he tossed her prized stash of Cloud City Creamery sheep’s milk cheese, which she'd special ordered from Seattle. Seven ounces of wasted cheese is precisely what pushes Tam to finally leave Brent in New York and send out an SOS to her best friend, Josh O’Malley. It’s been five years since she’s seen him, and Brent’s jealousy was the driving force behind the fact that she’d lost touch with Josh and the Nerd Herd, their close-knit group of friends. But for Josh, half a decade of minimal communication with his high school BFF proves no problem at all, and he’s more than happy to fly her back to Ponto Beach, California, to stay with him as he helps her start anew. They easily fall back into their old ways as he helps Tam “[find] her bliss” professionally, but what they didn’t expect? A newfound sexual tension neither of them can escape. Tam and Josh soon find that living together as adults is much different—and much hotter—than a teenage sleepover, and maybe it’s time for them to save their friendship by ruining it. The second book in Yardley’s Ponto Beach Reunion series welcomes back some familiar faces, including Lily and Tobin from Love, Comment, Subscribe (2021), and the Nerd Herd is back and friendlier than ever. Yardley’s prose is summery and light—“The afternoon sun was high and hot, so the cool air off the Pacific felt like a benediction”—and you’ll get swept up as Tam and Josh breezily fall right back into place as the lovably cheesy duo known as Jam.
A mouthwatering romance.Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-3002-1
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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