An enemies-to-lovers romance that engages neither with complexities of animosity nor the simplicity of love.
A lawyer must stop litigating the past to find love in the present.
The Blum and Stark families have been thickly intertwined for years, since they moved in across the street from each other in Hoboken, New Jersey, when their kids were small. Now, Molly Blum and Jude Stark’s older siblings have decided to join forces to throw a joint wedding anniversary party for their parents. Although Jude and Molly once got along as well as the rest of their families, their friendship dissolved abruptly when they were children. Molly became locked into a war of nasty pranks with Jude until a life-altering incident precipitated an uneasy truce between the warring parties. But meeting a decade after the détente, and especially being forced to tour prospective party venues together, reignites their old animosity. Molly and Jude are on the brink of descending into a familiar rivalry when they consciously decide to put a halt to their antics. Forced to look at Jude from a new perspective, Molly realizes that not only has she consistently been dating men who remind her of her childhood friend-turned-enemy, but also that she has long been nursing a sexual attraction for Jude. Molly decides to act on her growing feelings, but their shared history might just block her way to a future with the man she has always desired. Since the story is told entirely from Molly’s point of view, the rivalry at its center seems half-baked, and the shift in the protagonists’ attitudes toward each other, ill-explained and abrupt. The resolution of Molly’s familial and romantic troubles strikes a flat note, but her professional struggles ring with authenticity. Schorr builds an entertaining world with interesting secondary characters but is unable to convincingly map the trajectory of the protagonists’ evolving relationship.
An enemies-to-lovers romance that engages neither with complexities of animosity nor the simplicity of love.Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781538754801
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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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