A fun friends-to-lovers story about small-town relationships and family obligations.
In this romance sequel, a young woman must find a fiance by a deadline or else fall prey to a modern-day arranged marriage.
Misty Delaney and her two sisters love living in Majestic, Maine, where they work at Bearberry Brews, the coffee shop their parents opened years earlier. Unfortunately, money has recently been tight for their parents and the shop. When their mother receives an offer to merge with another company, which will save the Delaneys from financial ruin, the young women are elated until they discover that the deal requires one of them—any one of them—to marry Aidan Strong, the son of their parents’ competitor. The siblings decide that if any sister should land a fiance within 30 days, she will be exempt from the arrangement. After one of them does just that, the race is on between Misty and her sister Charlotte to lock in true love before their window of opportunity slams shut. Meanwhile, Lucas Reyes, an employee at Bearberry Brews, has secretly adored Misty for years. When he discovers the sisters’ competition, he realizes he must do everything in his power to enchant Misty before he loses his chance with her forever. Told in a third-person narration primarily from Misty’s perspective, the story periodically shifts to Lucas’ point of view, offering helpful insights into his motivations. As they spend more time together, Misty’s feelings for Lucas become complicated and misunderstandings arise, some of which feel trite and others refreshingly original. In addition, the dialogue begins to grow delightfully flirtatious. At times, Baird’s plot does stretch the bounds of believability. For example, when Charlotte pays for a billboard advertising that Misty is available for a marriage proposal, the small-town coffee shop is immediately mobbed with potential suitors (“Suddenly their hometown girl was a Highway One celebrity”). Although scenes in the middle of the book drag as Lucas and Misty repeatedly spend too long chatting about minutiae that does not advance the narrative, the tale’s upbeat tone and likable characters are sure to please readers seeking a wholesome romance. With questions left unanswered at the book’s end, it seems likely there will be another installment in this series.
A fun friends-to-lovers story about small-town relationships and family obligations.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64937-369-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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