A cookie-cutter contemporary that’s oddly obsessed with motherhood.
A longtime crush is complicated by a surprise pregnancy in Liasson's (The Way You Love Me, 2019, etc.) small-town holiday romance.
Kaitlyn Barnes has a lot going on with running her coffee shop, looking after her teenage niece, and now dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. After a one-night affair with Rafe Langdon, the man she’s loved for years, Kaitlyn is surprised to learn she’s pregnant, though she’s on two forms of birth control and never thought she’d have a baby at her age: 31. Kaitlyn vacillates between shock over the pregnancy and thinking about just how attractive Rafe is; both points are hammered home to an annoying degree. Rafe is painted as the town charmer, but his flirtatious mask hides a painful history: He still carries a significant amount of grief over the loss of his fiancee and their unborn child after a fatal car accident. Though he’s known Kaitlyn all his life, Rafe is wary of love, marriage, and fatherhood; he isn’t sure he can take another loss. Readers who enjoy small-town romances will find all the usual suspects: quaint shops, meddling yet good-natured townspeople, and twee holiday cheer. However, the way womanhood is intrinsically linked to motherhood here gives the book a sour taste. It’s an antiquated message set in a town that feels untouched by diversity or the modern world, given that women are getting pregnant well past age 31 these days. The friends-to-lovers romance is serviceable. Kaitlyn and Rafe are likable main characters, though reading about the minutiae of their day-to-day responsibilities grows tiresome. As a contemporary holiday romance, this is fine, but the book's deeper message is rather hurtful.
A cookie-cutter contemporary that’s oddly obsessed with motherhood.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4555-4185-0
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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