A fast read and fun concept suitable for enjoyment year-round.
In this romance, two actors connect on the set of a Christmas movie.
In the small town of Gingerbread Falls, North Dakota, Noelle Butler is ready for Christmas. Young, beautiful, and single, she left the rat race of the city behind to open a popular cafe in her tiny, holiday-loving hometown and is determined to get first place in the window-display contest once again. But Noelle also longs for a special someone, and the Gingerbread Falls dating pool is seriously shallow…until she literally falls into the arms of Carson Stark, a doctor. Noelle and the handsome, sensitive physician quickly form a love connection, but Carson is hiding something important—will his secrecy ruin Noelle’s perfect Christmas? When the cameras stop rolling in the real-life Gingerbread Falls on the set of The Christmas Channel’s newest movie, 27-year-old working actor Carrie Murray (aka Noelle Butler) does her best to avoid Braxton Timothy, Hollywood’s biggest action star, who’s producing the film and playing Carson Stark. Carrie’s well aware of Braxton’s playboy reputation back in Tinseltown, and all she wants is to keep her head down and earn a paycheck on yet another Christmas movie, despite her own aversion to the holiday. But Braxton is persistent, and the town is tiny, so Carrie quickly finds herself catching feelings. Will she finally feel comfortable disclosing her traumatic past to a potential new lover? Mettner crafts two parallel, interdependent stories in a singular novel that’s ideal for those who can’t get enough of Hallmark movies come the holiday season. Carrie is a strong survivor and hero, an actor who doesn’t recognize her own natural talent and strives to keep a low profile despite her ripped-from-the-headlines childhood. But she lands at a crossroads when she realizes her showmance with Braxton might be the real thing. Braxton is not as well developed. He comes across as a little too perfect and evolved (not to mention he tends to explain Carrie’s own feelings to her) and gives a cutesy nickname to his own anatomy.
A fast read and fun concept suitable for enjoyment year-round.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Breaking Night Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.
A collegiate diver and swimmer secretly pursue kink together, and risk falling in love along the way.
Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling. Despite a successful recovery from the injury that almost ended her Stanford diving career, she hasn’t been able to get her head together, and it’s affecting her performance. Plus, she’s trying to stay focused on getting into medical school. A relationship would be out of the question. By comparison, Lukas Blomqvist is a swimming idol, a record-breaker who wins medals as easily as breathing, and Scarlett has long been convinced he would never look in her direction—until one fateful night when a mutual friend lets slip that they have something unexpected in common: Scarlett likes to be submissive in the bedroom, while Lukas prefers to take a dominant approach. Now, they both know a big secret about each other, and it’s something neither of them can stop thinking about. It’s Lukas who suggests they have a fling—purely physical, just to take the edge off, so Scarlett can get out of her own head and stop overthinking her dives. Initially, their arrangement is easy to stick to, but the more time they spend together, the more Scarlett starts to realize that what she feels for Lukas is more than physical attraction. Complicating the situation is the fact that Scarlett’s friend Penelope Ross used to go out with Lukas, and the longer Scarlett keeps mum about her true feelings for him, the more difficult it is to keep the situation hidden from another person she really cares about. While Scarlett and Lukas’ relationship does begin as a physical one, their deeper psychological connection takes a little too long to emerge amid all the other storylines, resulting in a somewhat rushed resolution. However, Hazelwood’s latest is proof of the depth and maturity that has emerged in her writing over the years, and it highlights her embrace of sexier, more emotional elements than were present in her original STEMinist rom-coms.
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593641057
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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