A witty and queer Regency romance full of fun references for Austen fans.
While competing for the same man, two ladies realize they would rather win each other.
The 1817 Season is in full swing in Bath, and as yet another ball begins, everything is going just as Lady Rosalie (and her mother) have planned. She looks perfect in her gown and has only two friends left to pair off with suitable men. And of course, she’s nearly engaged herself, to future viscount Mr. Dean, even though she feels no real passion for him. So it’s a shock when the Pine family, new in town, are announced at the ball and immediately begin to unravel their plans. Miss Catherine Pine and her mother seem set on snatching Mr. Dean away from Rosalie, and the women are soon circling each other carefully at one social event after another, intensely looking for opportunities to prove their superiority and eventually admitting to being at war. But Rosalie soon realizes that her strong feelings for Catherine actually remind her of how she felt for her first love, Jane, and Catherine starts to admit that what she feels for Rosalie is closer to what she felt during her first kiss with another girl. As their attentions turn away from their competition and toward each other, it’s easy enough for them to find an opportunity to explore their attraction physically. After all, who could object to two women taking tea together alone in a parlor? But though their mutual adoration develops into love, society does not offer any pathways toward the future they dream of sharing, and they struggle to find a path forward together. Alban’s latest Sapphic Regency romance, loosely based on Northanger Abbey, is a sweet and spicy enemies-to-lovers story, enhanced by copious details about life in Regency Bath that will forever influence how readers think about what it means to “take [the] waters” there. Alban’s ability to center the blossoming of a romantic relationship without minimizing the importance of friends and family is on full display here, granting the story an extra measure of complexity that heightens the intense connection between Rosalie and Catherine. Their happily-ever-after is perhaps a little too optimistic given the book’s setting, but readers will likely be too charmed to mind.
A witty and queer Regency romance full of fun references for Austen fans.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780063428775
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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