An offbeat story that offers unexpected twists on a familiar setup.
A historical romance featuring a widow and an uptight British gentleman who find love.
As the story opens, it’s 1817, and Gareth Lockheart is listening to Sandford Featherstone, his guide to the behavior of the English aristocracy, talk about how many puppies he’d need to raise hunting dogs. All Gareth wants to do is get back to his investment projects, but in order to do business with the upper echelons of British society, he must learn to act like an aristocrat. He already has the lavish country house—it just needs the finishing touches, such as a beautiful garden. Widowed gardener Serena Lombard originally comes to Gareth’s country home to talk over possible design plans for improving the estate, but she leaves with total control over the whole design and construction project. She initially finds Gareth’s straightforward and humorless manner mildly amusing, but the more time they spend together, the more she realizes that her feelings for him run deeper. As time goes on, though, the two grow closer, and Serena begins to rely on him—and even reveals some of the darkness in her past. However, Gareth needs an aristocratic wife to be seen as a perfect British gentleman, and both he and Serena know that she’s not it. It soon becomes clear that their love might not be enough to keep them together. Spencer’s second novel in the Academy of Love series, following 2019’s The Music of Love, manages to feel original despite its very traditional opposites-attract storyline. This is due in part to the inclusion of Serena’s dangerous past, her young son, and Gareth’s desperation to fulfill a role that he doesn’t particularly care for. The attraction between the two main characters is clear from their first meeting, and their banter and occasional awkwardness around each other make for a consistently entertaining read. Serena’s past provides an exciting twist that will satisfy readers looking for something a little different in the historical romance genre.
An offbeat story that offers unexpected twists on a familiar setup.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951662-02-8
Page Count: 329
Publisher: Crooked Sixpence Press
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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