A playful and heartfelt romance that expertly grounds fantastical elements in a real-world love triangle.
In Steenblik’s novel, an unassuming man who finds himself in love with two very different people receives unexpected help from a supernatural being.
Twenty-seven-year-old Mark Williams leads a quiet life in New Jersey as an IT tech for Rutgers University. His life changes forever when he inadvertently rubs a bronze lamp and releases Eros, a Djinn who occasionally likes to dabble in mortal affairs. Mark and Eros set about sorting out Mark’s increasingly complicated romantic feelings toward his best friend, Elijah—a larger-than-life drag queen—and Viktoriya, a Ukrainian woman looking for a fresh start: “Viktoriya hadn’t just listened to the words I was saying. She heard me and saw what flowed beneath those words. The only other person who’d ever done that was Elijah—he always seemed to know what I was thinking and feeling…Would it be the same with Viktoriya if she became part of my life?” While Mark struggles with making everyone involved happy (possibly to the detriment of himself), he must also contend with a vicious real estate developer intent on taking the family apple orchard. Can Eros help Mark see that sometimes the answer to what the heart wants is not that complicated after all? This fun and frothy love story offers strong LGBTQ+ representation while simultaneously delving into the oft-misunderstood world of polyamory. Steenblik expertly tackles myriad issues of modern love—from the emotional complexities to the physical logistics—with a refreshing straightforwardness and a cheeky splash of the supernatural. While the real estate subplot feels unnecessary and a bit absurd (the agent is so one-dimensionally dastardly that he may as well be twirling a mustache), the novel’s magic really shines when it focuses on Mark’s emotional growth and his sexy (not graphic) love triangle with Elijah and Viktoriya. Steenblik has crafted an entertaining and poignant romance that celebrates love in whatever form it may take.
A playful and heartfelt romance that expertly grounds fantastical elements in a real-world love triangle.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798995363804
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Wasted Words
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2026
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
A heartfelt look at taking second chances, in life and in love.
Two struggling authors spend the summer writing and falling in love in a quaint beach town.
January Andrews has just arrived in the small town of North Bear Shores with some serious baggage. Her father has been dead for a year, but she still hasn’t come to terms with what she found out at his funeral—he had been cheating on her mother for years. January plans to spend the summer cleaning out and selling the house her father and “That Woman” lived in together. But she’s also a down-on-her-luck author facing writer’s block, and she no longer believes in the happily-ever-after she’s made the benchmark of her work. Her steadily dwindling bank account, though, is a daily reminder that she must sell her next book, and fast. Serendipitously, she discovers that her new next-door neighbor is Augustus Everett, the darling of the literary fiction set and her former college rival/crush. Gus also happens to be struggling with his next book (and some serious trauma that unfolds throughout the novel). Though the two get off to a rocky start, they soon make a bet: Gus will try to write a romance novel, and January will attempt “bleak literary fiction.” They spend the summer teaching each other the art of their own genres—January takes Gus on a romantic outing to the local carnival; Gus takes January to the burned-down remains of a former cult—and they both process their own grief, loss, and trauma through this experiment. There are more than enough steamy scenes to sustain the slow-burn romance, and smart commentary on the placement and purpose of “women’s fiction” joins with crucial conversations about mental health to add multiple intriguing layers to the plot.
A heartfelt look at taking second chances, in life and in love.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0673-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Jove/Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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