An easy-to-read, forced-proximity romance filled with quirky characters, strong—but flawed—women, and supportive men.
A 29-year-old woman inherits 50% of a farm near Lake Tahoe and must work with the other owner to save the property.
Luna Wright has a huge chip on her shoulder: Adopted at birth and hurt in love, she’s worked hard to be successful in her five years as the manager of Apple Ridge Farm, a gorgeous 150-acre spread in the Sierras. Which she thought she’d managed to do, with the help of friends and family—Willow, her best friend; Stella, her grandmother; and Chef, her first boyfriend and now good friend—despite the farm’s grumpy owner, whom all the employees hate, and her own history of failure. But then Silas Wittman, that grumpy owner, dies, and she finds out that not only was he her biological grandfather, making her hiring smack of nepotism, but he’s left her half the farm and a balloon payment that’s due in 60 days. And then her new business partner, Jameson Hayes, Silas’ investment manager, turns out to be a hot guy she met at a bar who turned her down cold. So to add to her stress about making the farm a success, and the fact that she’s convinced her beloved co-workers will hate her once they find out she’s part-owner, she has the embarrassment of working with a guy who rejected her. Jameson has secrets of his own, and he promised Silas he would stay at the farm for two months to help Luna, which won’t be easy.
An easy-to-read, forced-proximity romance filled with quirky characters, strong—but flawed—women, and supportive men.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063235755
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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
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