This cozy D&D-infused romance doubles as a swoony summer rom-com.
Two newbie gamers fall for each other both inside and outside their Dungeons & Dragons session.
Sadie Brooks has never felt more adrift. After losing her marketing job in New York, she’s retreated to small-town Texas to spend the summer with her best friend, Liam, while trying to figure out her next move. In the meantime, she finally lets Liam talk her into joining a D&D campaign. After creating her character, Jaylie, a confident cleric who serves the Goddess of Luck—and who just so happens to be everything Sadie wishes she were in real life—the next step is meeting the other people Liam has roped into the game. Everyone in their party is likable, but Sadie instantly takes notice of bartender Noah Walker, and it’s not just because of the impressive muscles beneath his flannel. He’s confident, friendly, and outgoing, and seems to have life all figured out solely by virtue of not trying to plan things at all. That carefree perspective matches that of Loren, the traveling bard that Noah’s created for himself to play, but it conflicts with Sadie’s desire for more certainty about what’s next. As their D&D campaign begins, Sadie and Noah find themselves falling for each other both in and out of the game, but their relationship may have a real-world expiration date. Noah doesn’t make a habit of staying anywhere for long, and Sadie finds herself courted by an exciting potential employer back in New York. Woods’ debut is an extended love letter to D&D and the perfect entry point for readers with only a cursory knowledge of the iconic fantasy game, allowing them to understand the beats of playing through a campaign. Yet it’s the inclusion of parallel narratives that really makes the novel sing. Jaylie and Loren’s romance plays out in an immersive fantasy timeline alongside Sadie and Noah’s more grounded contemporary story, and it’s clear to see how the former influences the latter as these two fall for each other over time.
This cozy D&D-infused romance doubles as a swoony summer rom-com.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780593975411
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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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