A classic Regency that feels like a holiday movie with a huge cast of characters who do very little.
Two families come together with an unexpected courtship.
The adopted daughter of an artist and his high-born wife, Winifred Cunningham has made peace with her childhood as an abandoned orphan and found contentment with her chosen family in Regency England. She is hoping that she can soon start another one with her friend Owen Ware, a younger brother of the Earl of Stratton. But when she meets another of his brothers, Nicholas, a colonel in the cavalry, her reaction to him makes her reevaluate what her heart truly desires. Nicholas knows it’s past time he marries and Grace Haviland, his commanding officer’s daughter, seems like the right choice—a woman of beauty and refinement who understands the military life. But his encounters with Win, who loves children and has no artifice, call forth a buried longing for the kind of passionate spousal affection he sees between many of his relatives. Despite their age difference of 13 years, both realize that their connection is special. Except for some minor tension while ensuring that the previous objects of Win and Nicholas’ affection are not harmed, there is no conflict in the plot. Much of the story takes place at a lengthy house party where Win and Nicholas end up conversing and understanding each other beyond their initial impressions—hers of him as a trained killer and his of her being plain and plainspoken. The novel’s events are preceded by a note from the author explaining the various characters from both their families whose courtships appeared in the Ravenswood and Westcott series, and the last fifth of the book feels like a list of the same people as they assemble for Win and Nicholas’ wedding. While some readers might find the low stakes and off-page sex make for an undemanding comfort read, others might be turned off by the leisurely pacing and scenes of rural socializing.
A classic Regency that feels like a holiday movie with a huge cast of characters who do very little.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780593818084
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 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
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
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