Steamy, fun, full of family drama.
A fake marriage leads to real feelings at a family wedding on a tropical island.
When Anna Green married Liam Weston, it wasn’t because they were in love—it was because they both needed access to family housing on campus, and marrying a relative stranger seemed like the best option. They avoided each other until graduation, and then Liam moved out and Anna never saw him again. Until he shows up at her door and tells her they were never actually divorced though he gave her papers to sign—and now he needs her to pretend to be his wife again. Liam is the heir to a giant grocery company, and the inheritance his grandfather promised him comes with a catch—he has to stay married for five years. Liam thought he could avoid his family until he hit the deadline, but now his sister’s getting married and he needs his wife to be there. He offers Anna money if she goes along with his plan, and Anna desperately needs the cash—she’s a struggling artist who’s just lost her convenience store job, and she’s also responsible for her dad’s medical bills. Anna agrees and suddenly finds herself swept up in a world of unimaginable wealth as she attends the wedding on a private island. She knows she doesn’t fit in, but she has to fake it to get her payout—and to help Liam get his. Because even though she never got to know him when they shared a roof, she now realizes that the man she married is actually a great guy, even if his family is a nightmare. As Anna and Liam project an image of domestic bliss to his skeptical relatives, Liam sees how honestly Anna lives her life, and he has to decide whether staying in his family’s good graces is worth living a lie. Christina Lauren, pen name of the bestselling duo behind countless rom-coms, have crafted another entertaining and lighthearted romance. Artistic Anna and uptight Liam make for a perfect case of opposites attract, and the island setting creates a wonderfully escapist mood.
Steamy, fun, full of family drama.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781668017722
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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
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
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