A poignant love story with a satisfying mix of thoughtfulness and humor.
A corporate executive reconnects with her family and finds an unexpected chance at love in Bass’ contemporary romance.
At 58, Elizabeth “Beth” Rhinehart, the Chicago-based CFO of a Fortune 500 company, should be basking in the rewards of her success; instead, she’s in the throes of a major midlife crisis. In need of a change, Beth resigns from her company, sells her luxurious penthouse, and returns to her family’s Cape Cod home to help her sister Katherine (“KK”) navigate a series of crises, including the sudden death of her best friend, Chickie Madeira. She even finds a renewed sense of purpose as a part-time school crossing guard as she connects with students from all walks of life, including Priya Deshmukh, a star student intent on pursuing an Ivy League education, and Malachy Doyle, a fifth grader from a troubled family. It’s in her capacity as crossing guard that Beth catches the eye of police chief Mike Ponce, a childhood acquaintance. As Beth becomes an integral part of the community, an attraction grows between her and Mike, although both are wary of romance after past failed relationships. When tragedy strikes, Beth and Mike must reevaluate their places in the community—and in each other’s lives. Bass’ novel is a sharply written sequel to her Happy Hour (2024) replete with well-developed characters and incisive writing that smoothly alternates between Beth’s and Mike’s perspectives as they process their unexpected romance. Beth loves poetry, and the author skillfully includes quotes from poets like Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams to emphasize key moments in the story. Bass’ writing offers a striking balance of humor and insight (“After decades of therapy, it took nine months of working as a school crossing guard to figure out what I needed”). Underlying the novel’s briskly paced narrative is a deeply empathetic exploration of grief, loneliness, and the quiet struggles of children living on society’s margins. In Bass’ skilled hands, what could be a simple breezy romance becomes a tender portrait of a community and all of its joys and sorrows.
A poignant love story with a satisfying mix of thoughtfulness and humor.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781665783354
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.
A second-chance romance from the author of Slow Dance (2024) and the Simon Snow Trilogy.
Cherry is fat. There are other things to know about Cherry, but this fact is essential to how she sees herself and—she knows—essential to how other people see her. And now that her husband’s hugely popular webcomic is a movie, she not only has to endure people confusing her with the character that’s based on her, but also the knowledge that the actor playing this character is wearing a fat suit. This pain is exacerbated by the fact that her marriage is over. It’s at this rock-bottom moment that her college crush reenters her life…This is a book about being fat, and Rowell does a great job of depicting what internalized fatphobia looks like. “Cherry was so used to thinking about being fat, she hardly even noticed that she was doing it. She was so used to thinking about being fat, she never thought about it.” Observations like this will resonate with a lot of readers, as will Cherry’s complicated feelings about weight-loss drugs. This is also a romance and, as a romance, it’s kind of all over the place. It’s totally realistic for Cherry to wonder if Russ—the guy from college—never pursued her because of her weight. This is a conflict that feels true. What’s less believable is the way he reacts when he sees a trailer for Cherry’s husband’s movie. It’s clear that he didn’t get that this movie was going to be a blockbuster. In short, Russ freaks out, and it’s not at all clear why. As for Cherry’s husband, the way she feels about him at the beginning of the book is totally disconnected from the way she feels about him in the novel’s latter half. It’s normal to have complicated feelings about the end of a marriage, of course, but there’s no emotional throughline to help the reader understand why Cherry’s feelings change so dramatically.
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780063380264
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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