by Kate Bromley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 25, 2021
A sweet look at what it really takes to get to happily-ever-after.
A romance author’s personal life is suddenly as turbulent as those of her characters when her first love reappears.
Kara Sullivan is surrounded by love. She’s a novelist who has written five super successful historical romances (and two less-successful contemporaries). Her sister, Jen, is pregnant with her first child, and her best friend, Cristina, is days away from getting married to her fiance, Jason. Sure, Kara has recently broken up with her boyfriend, and she hasn’t been inspired to write much of the new novel that's due to her publisher any day now, just before she leaves on a six-month trip to Italy. But she’s content to watch love in her peripheral vision for now. That is, until she's surprised to see Ryan Thompson at a party Cristina throws a week before her wedding. Ryan was her first love, and their tumultuous relationship ended in heartbreak so shattering that she hasn’t seen or spoken to him once in the 10 years since. Now it turns out that Ryan is one of Jason's groomsmen. After she lets Cristina talk her into a double date, Kara finds that the pattern of fighting and flirting she and Ryan fall into isn’t only confusing—it’s finally inspiring her to write. Though it’s hard to believe Kara can’t write a single word without being near Ryan—especially considering that she’s published seven novels in the decade since they broke up—she invites him to stay with her when he and his dog, Duke, are kicked out of their hotel. As they spend quality time in close quarters, secrets past and present come to light, and soon their relationship is more complicated than ever. In her debut novel, Bromley takes time to dive deeply into the complexities of Kara and Ryan’s story, building a believable foundation for a rekindled romance.
A sweet look at what it really takes to get to happily-ever-after.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-525-80643-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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by Kate Bromley
by Sarah Adams ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024
Haphazard and undemanding.
A sports agent’s first official client is the man she dumped years ago in college.
After two years of hard work as an underling, Nora Mackenzie is finally being promoted to full-time sports agent. She’s worked hard, kept quiet, and allowed men in the office to call her Mac—a nickname she hates—all to show she’s a team player and “one of the guys.” Unfortunately, her boss instructs her to sign Derek Pender, a football player coming off an injury, who happens to be the man she heartlessly dumped in their senior year of college. Derek signs with her for revenge, seeing it as his opportunity to pay Nora back for callously breaking his heart eight years earlier. He insists she be at his beck and call: answering his emails, running his errands, cooking dinner for his dates. He also refuses to let her explain why she broke up with him without warning or explanation. Nora feels she has no choice but to acquiesce to Derek’s humiliating demands, since she’s worked too hard to let him ruin her dream job. She hopes he’ll thaw and they might become friends, but Derek’s bad behavior is designed to hide the fact that he’s still in love with her. Nora’s characterization is uneven, veering between anger at how she’s treated in the male-dominated field to immature bickering and bantering with Derek. Although Adams likely meant for Derek and Nora’s interactions to have an enemies-to-lovers vibe, the characters instead seem juvenile and stuck in the past. The novel is fueled by a string of tropes—second chance romance! married in Vegas! only one bed!—each randomly deployed to keep the book going despite thin characterization and wan plotting.
Haphazard and undemanding.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593723678
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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by Faïza Guène & translated by Sarah Adams
by Ali Hazelwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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