A breezy romantic romp with plenty of heat.
An aspiring writer and a shop owner figure out how to fall in love in Hall’s romance series installment.
Mistletoe, Idaho, seems like the perfect small town in which to fall in love; things have worked out for siblings Merry, Nick, and Holly Winters, who are all happy in their respective relationships (as seen in other books in Hall’s series). But for Delilah Gill, Holly’s best friend, the burg feels more like a series of dead ends. No publisher wants her romantic fantasy book series, her parents nag her about getting a real job, and she’s sexually unsatisfied. Meanwhile, Anthony Russo is dealing with his mother’s death and has sworn himself to celibacy until he can find true love and build a life with someone. He and Delilah saw potential in each other the year before at a bachelor party and shared a promising kiss before insecurities and misunderstandings drove them apart. Anthony thought Delilah seemed hung up on his best friend Pike Sutton, and Delilah thinks Anthony doesn’t want her because she’s a plus-size woman, but they’re both wrong. After a night out (and puking incident), the two get closer, initiating a sexual and emotional connection that supersedes decorum and friendship, leading to some friction between them. As the holiday season progresses, however, and new obstacles arise, the intensity of their passion can’t be denied. Both Delilah and Anthony have believable emotional baggage that hinders their ability to effectively communicate. The timeframe means that the pace at which they go from acquaintances to lovers is quick, but their chemistry, rendered with brazen flourishes, makes their compatibility clear. Hall’s dialogue excels at conveying Delilah and Anthony’s wit, though it can sometimes veer into excessively quippy territory with Anthony dispensing lines like “does this earn me a check mark in the romantic column or the crazy-and-insecure column?” The small-town cozy atmosphere and the sprawl of secondary and tertiary characters set up plenty of future relationship opportunities, and readers will be eager to see how Delilah and Anthony grow beyond their initial coupling.
A breezy romantic romp with plenty of heat.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781039478190
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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