A well-drawn lead character with fiery desires is let down by an underwhelming story.
In Jones’ novel, a New York financial analyst moves next door to an enigmatic tycoon and enters a mysterious erotic world.
Nicolina is from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of a money manager who’s currently in jail for insider trading. The family’s fortunes have thus fallen, and Nicolina takes a job with charity group the Red Crest; she eventually becomes "assistant director of operations for the entire Middle East." Moving to New York City, she secures an entry-level job in finance and looks for cheaper housing outside Manhattan. The village of West Hillock is perfect for her—far better than East Hillock, the old-money side of town, which the half Indigenous Nicolina finds racist and snobby. Nicolina meets Julian, a polo player from Argentina; he seduces her into a sado-masochistic encounter, which Nicolina ends up loving. She also encounters Gatsby, a local tycoon. The origin of his wealth is unknown, and his backstory is the stuff of rumors, but money supersedes everything, especially in the borough of Hillock (“any honest citizen knows that full faith in the dollar trumps thoughts of any messianic savior seven days a week”). Upon meeting the mysterious gentleman, Nicolina is hooked, and possibly by more than his money. Gatsby has secrets and a dominating presence that Nicolina is unable to resist. Jones’ novel boasts strong writing and clearly defined characters, but it’s hard to characterize by genre—the S&M scenes seem too infrequent for the story to be comfortably classed as erotica. Gatsby, despite his rough upbringing, is depicted too blandly to register as an exciting literary creation. Nicolina, on the other hand, is a compelling, three-dimensional character; she’s a career-oriented, perceptive person shaped by her experiences, with a spirited Indigenous Latine mother and a white-collar criminal father. The author depicts the moneyed, amoral community in which she lives in a satisfyingly scathing manner, but somehow, the narrative never fully coheres—the heightened language is appropriate for a thriller or erotic romp, but this novel doesn’t quite fit either category.
A well-drawn lead character with fiery desires is let down by an underwhelming story.Pub Date: June 15, 2026
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2026
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 cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.
After purchasing a dilapidated, century-old starship called the Destitute, Torian Razner discovers that the moss covering it is, in fact, a deeply sarcastic sentient computer with abandonment issues.
Torian’s sister, Celise, is dying. Determined to save her life by getting her to a distant planet with air she can breathe, Torian ignores her former captain Amelia Perrosk’s warning that it’s an impossible task (along with any romantic feelings she might have for Amelia). Using the only ionite bars she has to her name, Torian purchases an ancient, moss-covered alien starship that appears to be on its last legs, so to speak. She hardly expected the moss to be a sentient computer or for it to hold a century-old grudge against its former alien captain. Moss quickly proves itself to be acerbic, intelligent, and rightly angry after being having been left behind for 100 years by its former captain. The two form a reluctant and surprising alliance, Torian proving to Moss that not all captains are “dog-turd fungus,” and they both gradually evolve into the best versions of themselves, human or otherwise. It’s obvious from the early pages that Thorne has crafted a story tailored to fans of Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series and Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. Falling somewhere between the two, this is a delightful mashup of romance, found family, and a touch of violence as Moss grapples with its feelings about its former captain and the unexpected kindness that Torian shows. Sweet without being overly saccharine, it’s a book for readers who want the adventure that comes with the vastness of outer space without its harsher realities.
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414144
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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