A fun story with twists and turns that will appeal to romantics and cold-case fans alike.
A young Georgia widow flips a historic house and finds evidence of a long-missing woman while developing a growing attraction for a co-worker.
Hattie Kavanaugh married her high school sweetheart and lost him to a motorcycle accident after just a few years of marriage. Almost seven years on, she’s still living in her unfinished bungalow renovation near Savannah, grieving her husband, Hank, and flipping houses with his dad, Tug; her best friend, Cassidy Pelletier; and Cass’ mother, Zenobia. After a disastrous flip where Hattie loses all her savings on a gorgeous—but dilapidated—157-year-old home, Hattie decides to take an offer to star in a Home Place Television Network production with Cass that will bring in a steady paycheck as she works on her next flip and tries to earn back the money she’s lost. The catch—which she doesn’t know but her producer, Mo Lopez, does—is that the show she signed on for has changed in concept from a straight house-flipping show to a house-flip–meets–dating-show, where the goal is for the handsome designer, Trae Bartholomew, to seduce her over the course of the series. Hattie digs deep to fund the flip, pawning her engagement ring and taking a loan from her father, a wealthy ex-felon who has served time in prison for embezzlement. Author Andrews has packed a lot into this story: Not only is there drama from the reality show and Hattie’s growing attraction to a co-worker, but 17 years earlier beloved local schoolteacher Lanier Ragan went missing, and the story follows both the renovation of the long-abandoned beach home Hattie buys and the discovery of evidence in the cold case of the teacher’s disappearance.
A fun story with twists and turns that will appeal to romantics and cold-case fans alike.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2502-7836-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 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.
