Not worth the RSVP.
Two people who scorn love fall for each other while teaming up to help others escape doomed relationships.
When Sophie Steinbeck finds out that her fiance, Stuart, is cheating on her before their wedding, she knows calling it off is the right thing to do. But her dad is employed by Stuart’s father, and Sophie is convinced the boss is just cruel enough to fire her dad out of spite. The solution comes in the form of Max Parks, a wedding objector for hire—he shows up at the chapel and publicly accuses Stuart of infidelity. A drunken celebration following Sophie’s non-wedding leads to a connection between her and Max, and when they decide to team up to help other wronged brides and grooms, sparks begin to fly between them. But with Sophie having just gone through a disastrous engagement, and Max still reeling from a heart-shattering breakup, neither one wants a relationship…right? Painter builds a foundation for entertaining rom-com antics, but none of the pieces hold together. Much of the dialogue, especially the banter between Max and Sophie, is more cringey than humorous. The wedding objector plot—by far the most striking aspect of the novel—moves to the background as the book shifts to a flimsy fake-dating scenario, and since neither Max nor Sophie really needs the money, there’s little urgency to their finding new ceremonies to foil. In fact, there’s little tension at all. Even when Max’s ex-girlfriend reappears toward the end of the novel, it does little to add conflict. Readers who enjoy their rom-coms with a lot of spice won’t be disappointed, but it’s not enough to support an otherwise weak entry in the genre.
Not worth the RSVP.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780593638019
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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 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
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