Christmas cheer and storybook romance combine in this uneven but charming holiday tale.
An unlucky-in-love arts educator goes on 12 dates before Christmas in Miller’s romance novel.
Jane Norwell believes she’s nothing special. Despite living in Snow Bridge, New York, where fairytale figures and other legendary characters roam the streets and prowl on dating apps, Jane is a non-magical, often-overlooked musical theater teacher. After giving up her own dreams of performing, she has settled for years of cohabitation with her immature high school sweetheart, Peter (Pan). Despite her beloved job and close relationship to her magically perfect sister Celeste’s family, Jane laments the passion missing from her life. Desperately dreaming of finding someone special to share Christmas with, Jane finally breaks it off with Peter. With Celeste’s pushy encouragement, she agrees to re-enter the dating pool, encountering a plethora of less-than-charming storybook suitors, each with their own entertaining fairytale foibles. Jane’s hopes begin to lift when her students are chosen to perform as the opening act for the Northpole Palace’s annual Holiday Benefit Production. Jane feels an instant spark with the gorgeous and powerful Nikolas, a suave and tender reimagining of Santa Claus (“The name isn’t just tradition: it’s legacy, a line of men, each chosen not just by blood but by something deeper, something magical”). This holiday romance effectively leverages the author’s expertise (Miller herself is an educator) to capture the importance of arts education and encouraging adolescents to find their voices. However, the deluge of storybook references often overpowers these themes and the quieter moments in Jane’s journey. The compressed, pre-Christmas timeline foreshortens Jane’s emotional maturation, speeding through and past moments for reflection. Still, the genuine and vibrant Christmas cheer that suffuses this book goes down as smoothly as hot cocoa and will satisfy fans of holiday romance.
Christmas cheer and storybook romance combine in this uneven but charming holiday tale.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9798990923621
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Evergrove Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 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
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