Parallel characters and melodramatic tales that prove somber but absorbing.
Two love stories set in different eras collide in this debut novel.
In 1997, American college freshman Karen Mary Williams won’t let anything sidetrack her goal of becoming a doctor. She can have an active social life and still study faithfully. But when Karen gets pregnant, her nerdish “study buddy” and maybe boyfriend, Peter Schmidt, offers to marry her. As the years pass, she concentrates on her new family even if it puts the brakes on her professional drive. Although she loves Peter, Karen may succumb to her sexual desire when reuniting with the rich pre-med student she dated back in college. In a concurrent plot, a woman awakens in an alley in 16th-century Antwerp. As she can’t remember who she is or how she got there, she goes by Mariken, a name courtesy of a kindhearted seamstress she befriends. But Mariken is definitely a physician, a skill she uses to help others. She falls in love with a humble blacksmith and rejects the advances of an arrogant banker. But living in an era when people are executed for heresy, Mariken is one of many women wrongfully accused of and tried for witchcraft. Wiens simplifies his dual plot narrative by focusing on one story at a time before tying them together in the present day. The swiftly paced novel fluidly moves through years with the married couple as well as Mariken’s fraught, centuries-old medical procedures. The tale also features real-life historical figures and events. The book is often grim, with the imprisoned women’s horrid treatment and a minor present-day serial-killer subplot that pays off by the end. The love stories, meanwhile, are enthralling and realistic; for example, Karen and Peter’s mutual fondness doesn’t mean they don’t bicker. While the plot-linking final act satisfies, the author drops enough hints throughout Mariken’s tale that many readers will have already made the connections.
Parallel characters and melodramatic tales that prove somber but absorbing.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2021
ISBN: 9798987879603
Page Count: 330
Publisher: H.P. Waterhouse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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