Beautiful and textured.
An odd house, a family haunted by secrets, and the girl who arrives to unravel it all.
Since her mother’s recent tragic death, 17-year-old Marin Blythe is all alone in the world, without a place to live or any money to support herself. A lifeline comes through an invitation from famous horror writer Alice Lovelace, her mom’s old childhood friend, who offers Marin room and board in her remote house in Maine in exchange for taking care of her younger children, Thea and Wren, while she finishes her latest novel. But from the moment she arrives, Marin notices something is off at Lovelace House, from Alice’s strangely disconnected behavior and the kids’ increasingly unkind pranks to the house’s secret corners and the dead, mutilated animals that appear everywhere. It’s only when Evie, Alice’s beautiful teen daughter, comes home from school that Marin slowly finds the answers she is looking for and starts to fall in love—just as events spiral out of control. This gothic story merges horror and a lovely queer romance with a helping of the fantastical in what is ultimately a story about grieving, secrets, and belonging. Marin’s yearning for a place to belong informs most of the narrative, which starts off with her as the outsider looking in but shifts as she slowly but surely carves her way into becoming part of the family in unexpected ways. Main characters are cued White.
Beautiful and textured. (Gothic romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780063242982
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A character-focused entry that will satisfy fans.
Romantic complications between a trained killer and one of her captors drive this sequel to Watch Me (2025).
Appealing to readers who prefer their romantic dramas to be light on action and heavy on long passages of banter, bitter sibling arguments, and tortured reflections, Mafi continues the tale of Rosabelle Wolff, the flaxen-haired assassin from the dystopic Reestablishment, and magnetic, “impossibly stunning” James Anderson, her nemesis-turned-lover who’s still trying to take down the regime. Now desperate to accomplish several secret missions, Rosa easily escapes from one of The New Republic’s prisons, where she was left in the series opener, and, dressed in “a little kid’s cat onesie,” eludes all pursuers except for James, who can seemingly find her at will. Enigmatic Rosa responds unpredictably to many human contacts—including with violence, temporary death (one of her abilities), or a sudden panic attack. Along with the central pair of rivals and lovers, James’ older brother, Aaron, shares the narration. Bestseller Mafi tucks in several subplots, including, notably, a cameo from Juliette Ferrars, the protagonist of the original Shatter Me series, who’s undergoing a scarily difficult pregnancy. Amid the slowly simmering rising action, the author delivers a revelation and a twist that set up a potential series climax. Some ethnic diversity is present in the supporting cast.
A character-focused entry that will satisfy fans. (Dystopian. 14-adult)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780063419056
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
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