A gentle, heartfelt story of the messy beauty of becoming.
In Leavy’s series installment, following After the Red Carpet (2024), a family of artists navigates love, legacy, and reinvention in an intergenerational tale of second chances and quiet revelations.
The author continues the story of Ella and Finn Forrester—Hollywood’s favorite enduring couple—by shifting the focus to their grown children, each on the cusp of personal transformation. Georgia, a rising actress, embarks on a career-defining film shoot in Iceland under the guidance of legendary director Jean Mercier. Her free-spirited nature is tested as she confronts both professional pressure and the lingering shadow of her parents’ fairytale romance. Meanwhile, her sister, Betty, a dedicated OB-GYN, wrestles with her aversion to intimacy and her growing connection to a close friend and colleague. Albert, the quiet artist of the family, explores his identity, and first love, while trying to shoulder the weight of being the son of an iconic movie star. As the kids forge their own paths, Ella and Finn prepare to renew their wedding vows, contemplating their own past and what it means to grow older together. Leavy’s prose is fluid, warm, and often poetic, capturing both the beauty of everyday moments and the emotional complexity of her characters’ inner lives. The novel seamlessly moves between perspectives, creating a full-bodied portrait of a clan at a crossroads, bound by love but separated by time and expectation. Although the stakes are largely emotional, the conflicts are rendered with care, revealing how even privileged lives involve quiet struggles. Fans of Leavy’s previous work will find familiar comfort in the close-knit dynamics, while new readers can easily enter the narrative here. Although some dialogue leans into sentimentality (“I still want to make life a grand adventure, but not without you”), the sincerity of the characters’ voices makes it feel earned. Leavy’s vision is ultimately hopeful, reminding readers that love—romantic, familial, and artistic—can be both grounding and liberating.
A gentle, heartfelt story of the messy beauty of becoming.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781647429485
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2025
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
A deep and moving portrayal of first love.
Two college students rekindle their relationship as they unravel the truth behind their breakup.
On the outside, college senior Bennett Reiner has it all. A goalie for Waterfell University’s hockey team, he lives with a group of friends in a luxurious off-campus house. He and his best friend, Rhys Koteskiy, have fathers who are retired hockey legends. But on the inside, he’s falling apart. Struggling with OCD, a shaky friendship with Rhys, and second thoughts about pursuing a future in hockey, the only thing keeping Bennett afloat is also the one thing breaking his heart: Paloma Blake. All dyed-hair and attitude, Paloma has built a bad reputation on the hockey scene since their relationship ended freshman year—but Bennett knows the real P. Underneath her promiscuous facade lies a scared and lonely girl running from a childhood of abuse. When they were together, it seemed like their romance was perfect, until Paloma broke it off without warning. Since then, Bennett has run to Paloma’s side whenever she needed him, whether she was drunk, lonely, or hurting, and now he’s determined to win her back. For Bennett, Paloma is his antidote, the cure for his compulsions; for Paloma, Bennett is her protector, her safe space. And though Paloma yearns to be with Bennett again, she’s not sure she’s willing to open old wounds and reveal the truth about her painful past. In the third installment of the Undone series, Corinne spotlights familiar characters as they navigate trauma, heartbreak, and first love. Bennett and Paloma’s relationship is raw and vulnerable, and their journey of relinquishing control is both necessary and inevitable. Their romance evolves as they open up to one another, and in return, the reader is rewarded with a love story that’s as lyrical, evocative, and emotional as poetry.
A deep and moving portrayal of first love.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781668219423
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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