A sexy and funny paranormal romance with a slight barrier to entry.
Opposites attract when two doctors, who also happen to be wolf shifters, become fake mates for their own respective benefits.
Mackenzie Carter has had bad date after bad date, and her grandmother is becoming increasingly worried that she’ll never be mated. It doesn’t matter that she’s an accomplished ER doctor; her family only seems to care about her love life. Interventional cardiologist Noah Taylor is hiding his status as an unmated alpha, given that alphas are often incorrectly stereotyped for volatile and violent outbursts. But when he’s threatened with revelation to the medical board, putting his career in jeopardy, he’ll have to resort to drastic measures. Mackenzie, who is bubbly to Noah’s acerbic, has no qualms about suggesting the unthinkable: They could pretend to be mates. She’ll get her grandmother off her back, while Noah can put the rumors at ease before they get out of control. This is an omegaverse romance, drawing from the fanfiction genre of erotic shifter romances where alphas, betas, and omegas inhabit the shifter mythology. While romance readers and omegaverse fic lovers certainly have some crossover, those new to the concept might have to take several Google breaks to fully understand the worldbuilding at play, even though the book is wrapped in a contemporary rom-com package with only subtle references to the characters’ more animal natures. It’s still a steamy, worthwhile romance with plenty of banter, tapping into the popular grumpy-meets-sunshine trope. The fake-dating trope is amped up a notch by the addition of shifters and matehood, and while it feels a little like reinventing the wheel, Ferguson obviously had a blast writing this one.
A sexy and funny paranormal romance with a slight barrier to entry.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780593549377
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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