A sweet romance that would have improved with a little more heat.
A determinedly single small-town baker and a paleontologist recovering from heartbreak cross paths in highly unlikely circumstances, proving that love always finds a way.
Tucked away in a nondescript corner of rural Illinois with her grandparents, Alisha Blake yearns for the sights and sounds of urban life. Even as she helps her grandfather run their well-loved family-owned barbecue joint, she's secretly working toward opening her own bakery in Chicago. She finally builds up the nerve to tell her family about her plans, but she's forced to defer her announcement when a large dinosaur bone gets dug up in her grandparents’ backyard. Although the find throws a wrench in Alisha’s plans, it's a dream come true for Quentin Harris. He hopes that the bone will pave the path to academic prestige and finally vindicate his career choice in the eyes of his father. Quentin needs to focus on the dig, but his presence in Alisha's backyard unearths long-buried desires in both of them. Quentin, who was once jilted at the altar, is leery of committing to Alisha, and the talented baker is struggling to strike a balance between her family's needs and her own dreams. While Quentin's presence comforts and excites Alisha, the paleontologist’s sermons about her life choices often cut too close to the bone. To make their relationship work, both must quit digging in their heels and focus on rooting out old apprehensions and worries instead. Replete with instantly likable characters and relatable pop-culture references, Blumberg’s debut is warm, engaging, and emotionally honest. Alisha and Quentin’s gradual movement toward companionship hits all the right notes, and their interactions are both meaningful and fun. While the external obstacles and issues keeping them apart are quite real, their internal battles seem to reach too pat a resolution.
A sweet romance that would have improved with a little more heat.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-3390-9
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 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
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
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