Fits a bit too neatly into romantasy tropes.
A young woman must navigate a series of deadly tests to be fully admitted to a secretive school of magic.
Sophia DeWinter is no stranger to danger. An orphan, she was raised by a man called the Collector, whom she’s been told is her uncle and who controls her with an enchanted bracelet that tracks her movements. Her only hope for freedom is to gain entrance to Killmarth College, the school that trains wielders, people who can use magic. Sophia knows she has a small talent for illusion magic, and if she can get into Killmarth, the enchantments on the school’s grounds will destroy the Collector’s bracelet, and therefore his control over her. The time and location of the entrance exam, known as the Crucible, is secret, but Sophia manages to overhear a man in a bar talking about it. The man, Alden Locke, happens to be gorgeous, so it’s no hardship for Sophia to flirt the information out of him. Sophia is, of course, paired with Alden for the Crucible, and she manages to pass and gain a spot among the Killmarth hopefuls. But while she’s able to move to the grounds of Killmarth, and is freed of the Collector’s bracelet, she’ll have to pass another series of deadly tests, meant to whittle the hopefuls down to the best of the best, before she can secure a place for herself as a scholar of magic. The romance between Alden and Sophia is rather perfunctory and unsurprising. Greenlaw’s magic system, where wielders are separated into categories depending on their abilities, could be interesting, but without giving any spoilers, it’s always a little boring when the heroine just happens to be the most special of all the special magical people.
Fits a bit too neatly into romantasy tropes.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593984833
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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