A beguiling love story that resonates with delicate passion.
A lovelorn woman connects with a disreputable man and undergoes a crisis of faith in London’s latest romance.
Esther Miller, a 23-year-old Amish woman living in the village of Honey Brook, Pennsylvania, has been mourning the death of her fiance, Jacob, for two years as her friends and sisters get married, and she chafes at the tension between her dreams and Amish “plain living.” (She has a flourishing business selling handmade, floral-scented soap, but the “English” women who buy it crave stronger fragrances that could run afoul of Amish strictures against perfume.) Then she encounters Lucas Brenneman, Jacob’s handsome brother, who disappeared 10 years ago during his Rumspringa; he’s come home to work as a physician’s assistant and has adopted a new lifestyle, complete with pickup truck and satellite dish. Esther and Lucas feel drawn to each other and commence a tacit courtship, consisting mainly of long talks about family secrets, God, and their mutual sense of not fitting in; Esther even flirts and dines alone with Lucas and experiences a buggy crash that scandalously ends with him lying on top of her. Can they possibly have a future together? In this series starter, London paints a warm, vivid portrait of Amish life, centered on big farm families, kitchen chores, dressmaking, and caretaking of mules, goats, and children. It’s all couched in limpid prose with flashes of Austen-ite wit; when tried by her vain sister’s demands, for instance, “Esther inwardly sighed and tried to remember what her mother said about keeping her word, and what the preacher said last Sunday about showing unbridled charity toward others, and what the Bible said about not killing.” Esther’s life is replete with conundrums that may sound comically overstated to “English” ears—“If she couldn’t control her will enough to obey the simple rule of limiting the scents in her soap, how else might she sin in the future?”—but they effectively convey the moral seriousness of her Amish ethos. Her attachment to Lucas develops chastely, which makes the longing they feel for each other seem all the more intense.
A beguiling love story that resonates with delicate passion.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64063-906-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An extremely fun, fast-paced, and unusual addition to the marriage-in-trouble romance canon.
A marriage on the rocks gets a second chance—with a science-fiction twist.
Dr. Emery Martín is happily married to her husband Luca…mostly. She’s been madly in love with him since the moment they met, but in the three years they’ve been wed, she hasn’t been able to focus much on him. To the world—including Luca—Emery’s job involves developing medical-grade lasers. In reality, she works at a supersecret San Diego lab that’s engineering a compound to bring mammals back from the dead. Although Emery doesn’t want to admit it, she can tell that Luca feels pushed aside, but she believes so deeply in her work that she has a hard time leaving the lab. When Emery is late for dinner—yet again—on their anniversary, she rushes home only to see Luca get hit by a car. She has the secret compound in her car, and she knows she could get in major trouble if she uses it—but what’s she supposed to do, not save her husband’s life? The compound has only been tested on animals so far, and there’s no guarantee it will even work for humans. It does, though, and Luca comes back to life—with one small caveat. He can’t remember most things, including his marriage to Emery. After almost losing Luca, Emery is now grateful for what she has, and she’s determined to show him that she can be a better, more attentive partner. While Luca may not remember her, their magnetic chemistry is still there. This may be the do-over they needed to save their marriage—that is, if Emery can keep the life-reviving measures she took hidden from everyone around them, including nosy neighbors and her own company. Lauren—the pen name of the duo behind rom-coms like The Paradise Problem (2024)—has created a unique hook that feels genuinely refreshing. Emery and Luca’s unconventional second chance is emotionally compelling, and the slight thriller edge as Emery tries to cover up her actions keeps the pages turning.
An extremely fun, fast-paced, and unusual addition to the marriage-in-trouble romance canon.Pub Date: July 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781668017753
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
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
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