A cute literary-themed romance with light stakes.
A bookseller and a business consultant go from enemies to friends to lovers.
At 27, Carmella Sanchez has spent more than half her life at The Last Page, a charming independent bookstore nestled in New York City’s West Village. The eldest daughter of Peruvian immigrants, Ella was mentored by the shop’s owner, Leo Martin, who became a surrogate grandfather to her and prepared her to inherit the store. When Leo dies, grief-ridden Ella expects the future she’s been promised, only to learn the shop has instead been left to Leo’s estranged grandson. Twenty-eight-year-old Henry moved to Tennessee at age 10 after his father’s death, spending his summers at The Last Page until 12 years ago, when he had a fight with Leo and stopped speaking to him altogether. He arrives in New York intending to stay just a month to stabilize the store before returning home. Ella, however, resists any attempt to update the shop. With their egos clashing, animosity deepens until Leo’s secret is revealed: The Last Page is in dire financial straits, only months from closure. Forced to set aside their pride, Ella and Henry work together to save the store, finding they have much more in common than they originally thought—and there’s a growing attraction that’s becoming harder to ignore. Ella and Henry’s slow-burn relationship is sweet, but the novel’s greatest strength lies in its characters. The wide cast of booksellers shines, from Mabel the elderly clubbing kickboxer to “resident grump” Jack. "Staff Picks” at the beginning of each chapter cleverly deepen storylines such as an ongoing situationship between two employees while also providing great book recommendations to readers. While the central conflict could use more tension, the novel ultimately serves as a nice ode to the power of good bookstores—and booksellers.
A cute literary-themed romance with light stakes.Pub Date: May 12, 2026
ISBN: 9798892424097
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Alcove Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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 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
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