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
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.
A heartbroken man lusts after his therapist while seeking revenge on a drug kingpin and his enforcer.
Mitch Haskell’s wife, Angela, died two years ago of an apparent suicide, but Mitch has always believed the scene was staged. Certainly, she would never have willingly left their young son, Andrew, behind. Consumed with a thirst for vengeance, Mitch—a former Marine and undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and currently a police detective—is struggling with alcohol dependency and uncontrolled rage. Andrew is living with his in-laws, who are making not-so-subtle suggestions that they might apply for permanent guardianship if Mitch can’t get it together. So his boss and best friend, John Bowie, mandates that he go into therapy, which puts him in the path of sexy Dr. Dylan Reede. Within a few days, Mitch makes a connection between two new murders and the death of his former partner; finds a big clue that points to the truth about Angela’s death; goes undercover as a homeless man; takes on a vicious drug cartel; and obnoxiously bullies Dylan with a charm offensive that leads them inevitably to bed. While Mitch seems to lean into the stereotype of the ex-soldier/cop with deeply buried trauma who believes that the ends justify the means—at least in law enforcement—Dylan offers the strength and sweetness to help him start breaking down his walls, allowing herself to be vulnerable in turn. Is passionate sex enough to ground a relationship and a family for the long term? For these characters, and the breakneck speed of this thriller, it’s as good a foundation as any.
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781538743027
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.
A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath.
King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan. Actually, at first they refer to her as Daisy, for Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, but when they learn she came to their unnamed college on a golf scholarship, they change it to Jordan for Gatsby’s golfer friend. The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash. A Baptist, Sam has an everything-but policy about sex that only increases the tension. The title of the book refers to a nickname for the king of hearts from an obscure card game the three of them play called Sir Hincomb Funnibuster, and both the game and variations on the moniker recur as the novel spins through and past Jordan’s senior year, then decades into the future. King is a genius at writing love stories—including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize—and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, since nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780802165176
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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