A historical novel that offers a charming, feminist love story.
A matchmaker takes on her biggest client yet in this Regency romance.
Joanna Porter is good at her job: finding perfect matches for the esteemed members of the ton in London in 1817. It’s how the 27-year-old spinster supports her family, including her loving, widowed mother; her younger sister, Bessie; and her best friend, Lilly Appleby, a gifted aspiring architect who has lived with the Porters for years. But Jo’s thrown for a loop when 33-year-old Matthew Leighton, also known as the Duke of Crestmont, enters her office on a mission: get married to a suitable duchess-in-training as soon as humanly possible. Jo knows from experience that even a facilitated relationship takes time to grow, but Matthew has his own reasons for hurrying to wed, namely a scheming uncle with his eyes on the duke’s legacy, and a bruised ego from a past engagement that went awry. And if Jo “could match a duke, then everyone in London—no, all of England—would want to work with her.” When Lilly’s love, Charles Cherrington, reveals that he can’t marry her unless one of his sisters is engaged to a man with sizable enough wealth to erase the Cherrington family’s debt, Jo sees an opportunity. She plans to match Matthew with one of Charles’ many sisters so Lilly and her beau are free and clear to wed. What Jo doesn’t count on is her growing feelings for Matthew, a gruff but good man with passions for meteorology and rowboats—and for his matchmaker. What’s a single woman and loyal friend to do? Haymore has a deft hand with witty dialogue and rom-com–esque circumstances, pushing Jo and Matthew together and pulling them apart in ways that are both realistic and pleasurable for romance fans. Their relationship is built on equality and mutual respect as well as sizzling hot chemistry, evident in scenes that easily blend sensuality with intellect. The subplot involving the Cherringtons, a tightknit group of siblings who stick together no matter what, is entertaining and heartfelt. And Lilly, bursting with design talent in an era when women are only expected to marry—and marry well—is a delightful sidekick and friend.
A historical novel that offers a charming, feminist love story.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64937-275-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 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
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.
A second-chance romance from the author of Slow Dance (2024) and the Simon Snow Trilogy.
Cherry is fat. There are other things to know about Cherry, but this fact is essential to how she sees herself and—she knows—essential to how other people see her. And now that her husband’s hugely popular webcomic is a movie, she not only has to endure people confusing her with the character that’s based on her, but also the knowledge that the actor playing this character is wearing a fat suit. This pain is exacerbated by the fact that her marriage is over. It’s at this rock-bottom moment that her college crush reenters her life…This is a book about being fat, and Rowell does a great job of depicting what internalized fatphobia looks like. “Cherry was so used to thinking about being fat, she hardly even noticed that she was doing it. She was so used to thinking about being fat, she never thought about it.” Observations like this will resonate with a lot of readers, as will Cherry’s complicated feelings about weight-loss drugs. This is also a romance and, as a romance, it’s kind of all over the place. It’s totally realistic for Cherry to wonder if Russ—the guy from college—never pursued her because of her weight. This is a conflict that feels true. What’s less believable is the way he reacts when he sees a trailer for Cherry’s husband’s movie. It’s clear that he didn’t get that this movie was going to be a blockbuster. In short, Russ freaks out, and it’s not at all clear why. As for Cherry’s husband, the way she feels about him at the beginning of the book is totally disconnected from the way she feels about him in the novel’s latter half. It’s normal to have complicated feelings about the end of a marriage, of course, but there’s no emotional throughline to help the reader understand why Cherry’s feelings change so dramatically.
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780063380264
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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