A lighthearted romance, pleasant despite its lack of plausibility.
In Adams’ romance novel, a young woman is befriended by a country music star and finds herself falling in love with his tour manager.
The story opens as Christine Matthews, a professional song-plugger, races to the Country Music Awards in Nashville. Unfortunately, she’s running late, and the doors are about to close; she takes a messy tumble to the sidewalk and loses her opportunity to enter the venue. As luck would have it, the country music scene’s current heartthrob, Austin Garrett, is just pulling up in his tour bus when Christine falls (“She was humiliated enough without having to face the newest hunk in country music”). He recognizes her as the person who pitched him his recent hit song, and he invites her to attend the show as his date. From there, the pair begins to develop a complicated friendship, with Austin acting sometimes like a helpless younger brother and at other times like a romantic hopeful. Christine, however, is much more interested in Austin’s tour manager, Matt Miller, than she is in country’s newest pinup. Matt assumes Christine only has eyes for Austin, and she, in turn, believes he’s committed to another woman. When the media presents Christine as Austin’s newest girlfriend, she receives a flood of cruel comments online, bringing up past traumas and complicating her relationships with Austin and Matt even further. Told from Christine’s perspective, this plot-driven story is relatively fast-paced and engaging. However, many of the plot points strain credulity—the speed with which Austin adopts Christine as his closest friend and confidante feels like a stretch. Similarly, there are so few meaningful interactions between Christine and Matt in the first half of the book that it’s difficult to understand why she is so smitten with him. Readers learn precious little about Matt as a character, or what about him appeals to Christine. Even so, as the misunderstandings pile up, the author does an admirable job of rendering characters with complex issues of self-doubt while also pulling back the curtain on the Nashville music scene.
A lighthearted romance, pleasant despite its lack of plausibility.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9781647429188
Page Count: 304
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming love story that absolutely radiates warmth.
A single mom winds up fake dating an incredibly wealthy man in her hometown.
Dolly Brick is back in her hometown of Whitfield, Rhode Island, for the summer to help her dad and disabled brother manage their house and family business. As a 39-year-old single mother with multiple jobs—which now include working at the Brick Fish House—Dolly is always busy. When her mom left their family years ago, Dolly took over caring for her siblings and father and never really stopped. When she runs into Stewart Whitfield after making a shrimp delivery to his family’s mansion, she doesn’t think they could be more different. She’s had to figure out how to do everything by herself, and he can’t even change a tire. That’s why Stewart’s proposal that she pretend to be his girlfriend feels so unbelievable—but it comes with a hefty check that she desperately needs for home repairs. So she becomes the fake girlfriend of Stewart Whitfield (as in, the Whitfields her town is named after; his real fiancée just dumped him and it’s a bad time for him to be single) and experiences what it’s like to walk into fancy buildings through the front door instead of the service entrance. More than the boats and helicopter and expensive dinners, though, Dolly is impressed by what a kind man Stewart is—and how it feels to let someone else take care of her for a change. Soon, their relationship starts to feel more real than fake. Monaghan creates an impossibly winning story with a charming, lovable heroine. Dolly is capable, hardworking, and will do anything for the people she loves. She and Stewart both possess real flaws, and while their relationship begins with one of the most beloved rom-com tropes, their challenges feel like realistic adult obstacles rather than easily solved miscommunications. It’s also refreshing that, even though Dolly must learn to allow other people to help her, she never views her caretaking responsibilities as burdens. She deeply loves her family, and that love carries through the entire story.
A charming love story that absolutely radiates warmth.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9780593853979
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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