"Love Island" meets its match in this steamy summer romance.
All’s fair in love and reality TV when Cas Morgan lands a role on a popular dating competition show.
For Cas, dating is a full-time job. She works for a popular dating app called Friday, where she hosts singles mixers and club events for those seeking a relationship. But after five years, all Cas really wants is something, well, boring for a change—a stable 9-to-5 with an actual desk and no more drunken work nights. But when Cas is called into her boss’ office with the promise of a promotion, she’s surprised to learn that her professional life is about to get even wilder. Cas must compete on the popular dating program Hot Summer and gain the audience’s trust without letting the rest of the cast reveal Friday’s ultimate goal—to create a lucrative brand partnership with the show. All Cas has to do is lounge around in a bikini and maintain a surface-level amount of charm to get her to the finale, and then she’ll become the head of Friday’s newest marketing integration team. But once Cas arrives at the beautiful Cyprus villa she’ll call home for the next two months, she meets Ada Hall and her plans of avoiding any romantic connections crumble. Gorgeous redhead Ada is an instant fan favorite while Cas finds herself teetering on the verge of elimination each week. And yet, the only time Cas can truly be herself on the show is with Ada, a fact that makes her more and more likable to both the audience and Ada herself. Will Cas be able to win the hearts of Ada and Hot Summer fans, or will her secret leave her burned? Everhart’s romance is made of reality TV dreams: juicy gossip, hot hookups, and drama, drama, drama. Cas and Ada are the fan-made stars of Hot Summer’s very own Hot Gay Summer, and their chemistry is both refreshing and steaming off the pages. With reality TV theatrics and a heartfelt queer romance, this is a can’t-miss book.
"Love Island" meets its match in this steamy summer romance.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780593545126
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.
After purchasing a dilapidated, century-old starship called the Destitute, Torian Razner discovers that the moss covering it is, in fact, a deeply sarcastic sentient computer with abandonment issues.
Torian’s sister, Celise, is dying. Determined to save her life by getting her to a distant planet with air she can breathe, Torian ignores her former captain Amelia Perrosk’s warning that it’s an impossible task (along with any romantic feelings she might have for Amelia). Using the only ionite bars she has to her name, Torian purchases an ancient, moss-covered alien starship that appears to be on its last legs, so to speak. She hardly expected the moss to be a sentient computer or for it to hold a century-old grudge against its former alien captain. Moss quickly proves itself to be acerbic, intelligent, and rightly angry after being having been left behind for 100 years by its former captain. The two form a reluctant and surprising alliance, Torian proving to Moss that not all captains are “dog-turd fungus,” and they both gradually evolve into the best versions of themselves, human or otherwise. It’s obvious from the early pages that Thorne has crafted a story tailored to fans of Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series and Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. Falling somewhere between the two, this is a delightful mashup of romance, found family, and a touch of violence as Moss grapples with its feelings about its former captain and the unexpected kindness that Torian shows. Sweet without being overly saccharine, it’s a book for readers who want the adventure that comes with the vastness of outer space without its harsher realities.
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414144
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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