An enjoyable jaunt with Indian American and Indian Scottish protagonists that bridges their pasts and new horizons.
A Scottish road trip brings new love and heals old wounds.
Neelam Pillai is a Tamil Indian American reality TV producer who’s in Aberdeen for her estranged father’s wedding. A one-night stand with a hot Malayali Indian Scottish stranger before meeting up with her father and his fiancée seems like a harmless idea. To her surprise—though not any romance reader’s—the stranger turns out to be in the wedding party. Jacob Cherian, a bespectacled, bagpipe-playing literature professor, is a close acquaintance of both bride and groom. Startled, and grappling with unresolved feelings about her father’s seeming years of neglect, a tipsy Neelu says something unwise to his fiancée, triggering her flight. This begins a road trip across Scotland in pursuit of the runaway bride, with Neelu, her dad, and Jacob sorting through long-standing griefs and false assumptions and trying to grow past them into loving bonds. The chemistry between the romantic protagonists leaps off the page, though their parental losses—hers involving her parents’ divorce and his resulting from his parents’ deaths—compete significantly with the romantic plot. Neelu is also at a professional crossroads, having tired of the formulaic dating show she’s been producing for years. Jacob is somewhat risk averse, thanks to his best friend’s untimely death, complicating a potential future with Neelu—but the forced proximity of driving across the country is starting to change his outlook. The road-trip stops around Scotland are a bit twee, with sex scenes and parental confrontations bookended by funerals and weddings, bagpiping and heather bouquets. An epilogue neatly brings all of Neelu’s personal and professional hopes together after a seemingly mandatory crisis of faith about a long-distance relationship with Jacob. The combination produces a story that is less in the strict romance mode, edging more into women’s romantic fiction. The characters are clearly etched and memorable, though the original poetry written by both protagonists is best forgotten.
An enjoyable jaunt with Indian American and Indian Scottish protagonists that bridges their pasts and new horizons.Pub Date: July 21, 2026
ISBN: 9798217094660
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
A charming love story that absolutely radiates warmth.
A single mom winds up fake dating an incredibly wealthy man in her hometown.
Dolly Brick is back in her hometown of Whitfield, Rhode Island, for the summer to help her dad and disabled brother manage their house and family business. As a 39-year-old single mother with multiple jobs—which now include working at the Brick Fish House—Dolly is always busy. When her mom left their family years ago, Dolly took over caring for her siblings and father and never really stopped. When she runs into Stewart Whitfield after making a shrimp delivery to his family’s mansion, she doesn’t think they could be more different. She’s had to figure out how to do everything by herself, and he can’t even change a tire. That’s why Stewart’s proposal that she pretend to be his girlfriend feels so unbelievable—but it comes with a hefty check that she desperately needs for home repairs. So she becomes the fake girlfriend of Stewart Whitfield (as in, the Whitfields her town is named after; his real fiancée just dumped him and it’s a bad time for him to be single) and experiences what it’s like to walk into fancy buildings through the front door instead of the service entrance. More than the boats and helicopter and expensive dinners, though, Dolly is impressed by what a kind man Stewart is—and how it feels to let someone else take care of her for a change. Soon, their relationship starts to feel more real than fake. Monaghan creates an impossibly winning story with a charming, lovable heroine. Dolly is capable, hardworking, and will do anything for the people she loves. She and Stewart both possess real flaws, and while their relationship begins with one of the most beloved rom-com tropes, their challenges feel like realistic adult obstacles rather than easily solved miscommunications. It’s also refreshing that, even though Dolly must learn to allow other people to help her, she never views her caretaking responsibilities as burdens. She deeply loves her family, and that love carries through the entire story.
A charming love story that absolutely radiates warmth.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9780593853979
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
A deliciously dramatic look at how one woman’s past influences her future.
A happily engaged woman is pulled back to her hometown—and her first love—when tragedy strikes.
Billie Wright is living her dream, running a thriving fertility clinic in New York City and engaged to a wonderful trauma surgeon named Dean. Her happily-ever-after meant giving up her life in Wisconsin, where she left behind many friends as well as her high school sweetheart, Mick. Although they’d been deeply in love, when Billie’s ambition pulled her away from home and toward the city, Mick couldn’t handle either the distance or her busy schedule. Billie has finally moved on from that heartbreak—but then she receives a phone call from Mick, the first communication between them in years. Her best friend, Erin, died in a car accident, leaving behind an 11-year-old daughter, Phoebe. Now Billie must return home to help sort Erin’s affairs and provide some kind of comfort to Phoebe while grieving the loss of her best friend. Of course, being back home also means being in close contact with Mick. Their feelings for each other may not have ever gone away, and their proximity leads to big decisions for Billie. Can she ever reconcile her current life in Manhattan with her past in Wisconsin? And which one will be her future? Giffin knows how to do drama, and she ratchets up the stakes with every page as she continues to reveal new obstacles for Billie. The ending wraps up quite neatly, but the nostalgia-filled ride is full of twists and turns that will keep readers flipping the pages.
A deliciously dramatic look at how one woman’s past influences her future.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780593600320
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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