A fun and sexy ode to rom-coms, full of joy and chemistry.
A screenwriter finds herself starring in her latest romantic comedy…alongside the hunky nemesis who made her leave acting years ago.
Emmy Harper is one of the most popular screenwriters in Hollywood, and she even has an Oscar under her belt. Now she’s working on her latest film with her best friend, Liz Hudson, as the director. Everything should be going great—except that they can’t find an actress who fits Emmy’s vision. Liz convinces Emmy to take on the role herself, even though she’s hesitant to attempt it. The child of two well-known actors, Emmy had one disastrous role as a teenager that convinced her she worked better on the page than in front of the camera. But now she’s excited to try again, looking forward to working with her BFF on a fun movie…until she gets to the charming small-town inn where they’re filming and discovers that her leading man is none other than Grayson West. These days Grayson is a two-time Sexiest Man Alive who’s known for his work in action flicks, but Emmy knows him as her co-star in her first and only movie. She blames him for her career going up in flames, and now they’ll have to pretend to be in love again. The only problem, of course, is that Emmy still hates him with the fire of a thousand suns. If they want this movie to work—and if Emmy wants to avoid tanking her acting career for the second time—they’ll have to pretend they can’t keep their hands off each other. But what happens when their on-screen pretending crosses over into real life? Ballard creates a winning romantic comedy full of simmering chemistry. Emmy and Grayson’s intense sexual tension makes the pages fly by. The cozy small-town setting gives the story all the charm of a Hallmark movie—but with way more steam and snark.
A fun and sexy ode to rom-coms, full of joy and chemistry.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593712900
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 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 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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