A delightful, warm romance with an exciting, sports-filled, wintry setting.
Fake dating leads to real feelings during the 2026 Winter Olympics.
It’s the first time Great Britain’s women’s hockey team has made it to the Winter Games, but when an injury means their star player will have to sit it out, Arikoishe Shumba is expected to take up her mantle. At a New Year’s Eve party in London, Ari retreats to the roof and meets Drew Dlamini, an American photographer and recent college dropout. Expecting they’ll never meet again, they share their biggest relationship red flags and ring in the new year with a kiss. But when the Games begin in Switzerland, they run into each other. Ari wants her snowboarder ex-boyfriend to leave her alone and Drew needs insider access among the athletes to prove himself as a photojournalist during this gig, so they agree to a fake-dating scheme—just until Ari’s final game ends. They know the attraction between them is real, but they also agree they wouldn’t work as a couple, so pretending is a simple, mutually beneficial business transaction. The line between fake and real quickly starts to blur as the Games get underway, but there’s a secret connection between them that could tear them apart before they get the chance to make a real go at a relationship. Ari and Drew are endearing characters with fun, sparkling chemistry. Their honesty and vulnerability with each other about their emotions make them relatable and easy to cheer for, while their professional growth throughout the Games adds excitement. Both also deal with realistic family drama which plays into their insecurities and creates additional tension. The back-and-forth about whether this relationship is real or pretend gets a bit tedious as the story progresses, but their happy-for-now ending is refreshing and satisfying.
A delightful, warm romance with an exciting, sports-filled, wintry setting.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250425256
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
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
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.
A heartbroken man lusts after his therapist while seeking revenge on a drug kingpin and his enforcer.
Mitch Haskell’s wife, Angela, died two years ago of an apparent suicide, but Mitch has always believed the scene was staged. Certainly, she would never have willingly left their young son, Andrew, behind. Consumed with a thirst for vengeance, Mitch—a former Marine and undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and currently a police detective—is struggling with alcohol dependency and uncontrolled rage. Andrew is living with his in-laws, who are making not-so-subtle suggestions that they might apply for permanent guardianship if Mitch can’t get it together. So his boss and best friend, John Bowie, mandates that he go into therapy, which puts him in the path of sexy Dr. Dylan Reede. Within a few days, Mitch makes a connection between two new murders and the death of his former partner; finds a big clue that points to the truth about Angela’s death; goes undercover as a homeless man; takes on a vicious drug cartel; and obnoxiously bullies Dylan with a charm offensive that leads them inevitably to bed. While Mitch seems to lean into the stereotype of the ex-soldier/cop with deeply buried trauma who believes that the ends justify the means—at least in law enforcement—Dylan offers the strength and sweetness to help him start breaking down his walls, allowing herself to be vulnerable in turn. Is passionate sex enough to ground a relationship and a family for the long term? For these characters, and the breakneck speed of this thriller, it’s as good a foundation as any.
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781538743027
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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