A moving, magical holiday romance.
Exes are reunited during a chaotic, miraculous Hanukkah season in Manhattan.
Evelyn Schwartz is at the top of her game at work, and all her effort and long, thankless hours have led to a project that will let her truly make a name for herself: executive producing a live televised musical of A Christmas Carol, which will have her working all through Hanukkah. When an injury lands her in the studio’s medical bay, she’s shocked—and infuriated—to see her ex-husband filling in for the usual on-set doctor. David Adler hasn’t seen his wife since he left her two years ago, moved out of the city, and started an animal rescue farm. Despite their unresolved history, they agree to be professional and get through this production. When Evelyn encounters the ghost of a former co-worker, she thinks she must be hallucinating even though that’s never been a symptom of her chronic migraines before. Throughout the eight days of Hanukkah as Evelyn counts down to her show, solving one problem after another, more spectral and outlandish visitors appear to show her eight heartbreaks of Hanukkah past. As Evelyn relives the things that brought her and David together and then tore them apart, her love for him is reignited. It’ll take a Hanukkah miracle, though, for them to work through their past heartache. Meltzer blends the deep, somber emotions of heartbreak and loss with moments of pure hilarity and adds a dash of holiday-season magic to create an affecting, heartfelt story. Tough topics are deftly handled with tenderness, care, and compassion, while the characters are allowed to be realistically messy and complex. Evelyn’s growth as she faces her grief feels more substantial than the romance, although the two meaningfully weave together and the couple’s happy ending is well earned.
A moving, magical holiday romance.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780778334422
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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