Babies, bears, and B&Bs reign in Lee’s cozy rom-com.
Nursing a broken heart, a newly single Atlanta mother moves to the Georgia mountains, where she befriends her sexy yogi neighbor.
Ten weeks into motherhood, Hannah Tate can’t help but feel like one milk-filled, showerless hot mess. It doesn’t help that Killian Abbott, her musician boyfriend, is out playing gigs while she’s busy deciphering which type of newborn baby fluid is congealed in her hair. When she finds an engagement ring hidden in Killian’s boot, she thinks he’s finally willing to settle down…but then, instead of proposing, he dumps her. No amount of “conscious co-parenting” can convince Hannah to stick around, and since she’s also just been fired from her heinous disaster communications job while on maternity leave, she decides to leave the big city behind in search of a better, less messy existence. Hannah 2.0 takes shape in the middle of the Georgia mountains, with a promise to renovate her mom and stepdad’s dilapidated Airbnb. Soon enough, her new normal is taxidermized animals, snake sightings, and gun-toting, baby-holding neighbors. Not all her neighbors are Wild West material, though: There’s also the “emotional vagabond” River Aronson, who lives in an epic treehouse and does yoga shirtless. When River agrees to help reno the Airbnb in exchange for Sunday night dinners at the Tate cabin, Hannah can’t help but imagine her chiseled neighbor as part of the family, but first she has to decide if she’s ready to let another man into her and baby Bowie’s lives. Lee’s romance is witty and heartwarming, a refreshing take on family dynamics and loving yourself first. Hannah, though a self-proclaimed mess, is a strong mother intent on creating stability for her son and finding success in her personal life, and readers will easily root for her victories in love, life, and motherhood.
Babies, bears, and B&Bs reign in Lee’s cozy rom-com.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781454948841
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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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