A thoroughly satisfying Regency from one of our finest historical romance authors.
A vindication of the rights of shrews.
Lord deGriffith has finally had enough of his bluestocking daughter, Cassandra. After she openly challenges her father's fellow Member of Parliament about a bill she thinks will hurt the poor, he sets a new rule—her beloved sister, Hyacinth, may not marry, or even participate in her first season, until Cassandra herself marries. Frustrated, Cassandra leaves London, where she crosses paths with the notorious Lucius Beckingham, Duke of Ashmont, after her carriage crashes. She was infatuated with Lucius as a young girl but has since lost all patience with his disreputable behavior. As he tries to help Cassandra and her groom, who is badly hurt in the crash, Cassandra finds herself in a difficult position, without an appropriate chaperone, and Lucius—whose fiancee has just run off with one of his friends—offers to marry her. Though years ago this would have pleased Cassandra, and she’s still attracted to him, she no longer trusts the man he’s become—“beautiful, godlike, and hopeless.” Only later, after they are caught in a compromising position, will she agree to a sham engagement to salvage her reputation. Ashmont jumps at the chance to be closer to Cassandra, hoping that before it’s time to break it off, he’ll win her back—and with each day, he comes closer to his goal, with a little help from Mary Wollstonecraft. This book, second in Chase’s Difficult Dukes series, is a typically complex and engaging story from the author, rich with subplots and moments of intrigue. With a hero set on winning his heroine from the start, the suspense is derived primarily from just how far Ashmont will have to go to win back his Cassandra, and readers who like a groveling duke will enjoy his pursuit. Though it’s second in a series, new readers can jump right in, though fans of the first, A Duke in Shining Armor (2017), as well as those familiar with The Taming of the Shrew or Ten Things I Hate About You, will enjoy several subtle touches throughout the book.
A thoroughly satisfying Regency from one of our finest historical romance authors.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-245740-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.
A second-chance romance from the author of Slow Dance (2024) and the Simon Snow Trilogy.
Cherry is fat. There are other things to know about Cherry, but this fact is essential to how she sees herself and—she knows—essential to how other people see her. And now that her husband’s hugely popular webcomic is a movie, she not only has to endure people confusing her with the character that’s based on her, but also the knowledge that the actor playing this character is wearing a fat suit. This pain is exacerbated by the fact that her marriage is over. It’s at this rock-bottom moment that her college crush reenters her life…This is a book about being fat, and Rowell does a great job of depicting what internalized fatphobia looks like. “Cherry was so used to thinking about being fat, she hardly even noticed that she was doing it. She was so used to thinking about being fat, she never thought about it.” Observations like this will resonate with a lot of readers, as will Cherry’s complicated feelings about weight-loss drugs. This is also a romance and, as a romance, it’s kind of all over the place. It’s totally realistic for Cherry to wonder if Russ—the guy from college—never pursued her because of her weight. This is a conflict that feels true. What’s less believable is the way he reacts when he sees a trailer for Cherry’s husband’s movie. It’s clear that he didn’t get that this movie was going to be a blockbuster. In short, Russ freaks out, and it’s not at all clear why. As for Cherry’s husband, the way she feels about him at the beginning of the book is totally disconnected from the way she feels about him in the novel’s latter half. It’s normal to have complicated feelings about the end of a marriage, of course, but there’s no emotional throughline to help the reader understand why Cherry’s feelings change so dramatically.
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780063380264
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
