A somewhat familiar but intriguing story with a complex protagonist that flouts convention.
In Gordon’s novel, a lawyer’s business trip to Seattle turns into an extended affair punctuated by personal, familial, and romantic matters, along with plenty of power-plays.
Many modern romance protagonists and plotlines challenge stereotypical genre traditions. This novel initially feels fairly traditional with its heteronormative dynamics, wealthy love interests, and occasionally stock plot devices. However, it does have less-familiar elements, thanks to its unusual protagonist, Raven Rain Nichols, a 30-something lawyer from San Francisco with a strikingly clear memory and a tendency to dissociate from the present. Rather than simply building tension around a main character waiting for the perfect lover to enter her life, Gordon’s novel uses sex as a vehicle by which Raven explores her larger desires and her personhood. An author’s note describes the book as “a story about a woman coming to terms with who she is amidst complex relationships,” adding that it “takes place mid-journey to her becoming the woman she wants to be”; that is to say, there’s no ordinary happily-ever-after. One touchstone of that journey is tall, muscular Parker Page, Raven’s best friend and ex-lover from Stanford University; another is Noah “Nik” Knight, a playboy and wealthy real-estate developer who turns Raven’s seemingly ordinary business trip in Seattle, where her family lives, into a weeklong affair. (Of the latter, she muses, “I don’t tell him that whenever he opens his mouth to say something, I want to kiss him, which is crazy.”) With its conversational tone, shifting points of view, love-triangle frictions, and Emerald City backdrop, Gordon’s novel may appeal to readers looking for an offbeat and cerebral story of personal growth.
A somewhat familiar but intriguing story with a complex protagonist that flouts convention.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9798985356663
Page Count: 272
Publisher: 12:56 a.m.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 smart, steamy romance.
Tomforde’s sports romance pairs boardroom power plays with dugout drama.
As the youngest and only female owner of a Major League Baseball team, Reese Remington is used to pressure. Even though Reese is the granddaughter of the Windy City Warriors’ former owner, the men around her still question her position; she’ll “most likely have to work twice as hard and make [the] club’s success twice as noticeable to have any hope of being viewed as the right person to operate this team.” It doesn’t help that the franchise is bleeding money, the result of her grandfather’s hands-off approach in the years before his retirement. Reese must use her razor-sharp intelligence and fierce business sense to not only prove herself in a role in which the public is eager to see her fail, but also to make unpopular financial decisions to get the team out of the red. Enter Emmett Montgomery, a former All-Star turned field manager whose priorities lie firmly with people rather than profit. A man devoted to his team and his adopted child, Emmett has long since closed the door on romance, despite gentle nudging from his loved ones. His empathetic team-first mentality puts him immediately at odds with Reese’s pragmatic agenda, and with his contract up at the end of the year, Emmett worries he’ll be on the chopping block if he speaks out too much. Told from the perspectives of the leads, the novel gives equal page time to Reese and Emmett. Their concerns––the scrutiny Reese must endure as a woman in a male-dominated industry, and Emmett’s worries over his contract renewal––are tangible and add a sense of urgency to their every decision. While the novel includes some unavoidable exposition dumps to orient readers, it more than compensates by establishing clear stakes and a sense of momentum from the outset. The narrative successfully introduces credible barriers to the romance, which largely follows recognizable genre beats. The baseball setting is also used effectively, with the season-long arc mirroring the couple’s romantic and professional journeys.
A smart, steamy romance.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781649379795
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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