An uplifting, if overly sweet, story about the healing power of love.
In Leavy’s romance, a new couple must confront past traumas without destroying their fledgling relationship.
The book opens as 38-year-old Tess Lee meets Jack Miller for the first time while enjoying a drink alone at a bar. Their connection is instant and intense. After leaving the bar together they quickly become inseparable, and before long they’re professing their love to each other and sharing deep secrets. Tess reveals on their first night together that she was the victim of physical and emotional abuse as a child. Jack, in turn, tells Tess about the horrors he witnessed in his government positions fighting terrorism. They quickly introduce each other to the important people in their lives (“Do you think it will seem strange to our friends, how deeply we feel about each other after such a short time?”), which is when Jack learns that Tess, rather than being just another run-of-the-mill writer (as she’d implied), is actually an incredibly well-known and bestselling author. Seeing the opulence in which she lives, he’s floored, and worries that he might not be enough for her. Though Tess is able to quell his concerns, she soon suffers a traumatic experience and retreats into herself in a way that makes her doubt she can ever be sufficiently whole enough to meet the needs of her new love. While the novel moves surprisingly quickly at the beginning, with the characters sharing personal secrets and profound declarations when they are little more than strangers, the jarring pace does even out before the book’s halfway point. The narrative would have benefited from additional setting details to help ground readers and counterbalance the preponderance of dialogue. While the story flirts with the idea of Tess suffering from disordered eating as a result of her difficult past, the issue is portrayed inconsistently and is never resolved. Even so, there is an alluring hopefulness to the work as the author portrays the characters exploring each other and themselves as they struggle to recover from difficult pasts. Beyond the romantic themes, the narrative does manage to tackle several other difficult issues with grace, ranging from grief and self-doubt to self-love and second chances.
An uplifting, if overly sweet, story about the healing power of love.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781647428549
Page Count: 224
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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